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Does Religion Cause Violence?

Behind the common question lies a morass of unclear thinking.

Miniature of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, from f. 190 of Book of Hours, Use of Sarum . British Library, BL Egerton 2781 “Neville of Hornby Hours.”

Spring/Summer 2007

By William T. Cavanaugh

Everyone knows that religion has a dangerous tendency to promote violence. This story is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies, and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of religion to efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East.

In this essay, I am going to challenge that conventional wisdom, but not in the ways it is usually challenged by people who identify themselves as religious. Such people will sometimes argue that the real motivation behind so-called religious violence is in fact economic and political, not religious. Others will argue that people who do violence are, by definition, not religious. The Crusader is not really a Christian, for example, because he doesn’t really understand the meaning of Christianity. I don’t think that either of these arguments works. In the first place, it is impossible to separate out religious from economic and political motives in such a way that religious motives are innocent of violence. How could one, for example, separate religion from politics in Islam, when Muslims themselves make no such separation? In the second place, it may be the case that the Crusader has misappropriated the true message of Christ, but one cannot therefore excuse Christianity of all responsibility. Christianity is not primarily a set of doctrines, but a lived historical experience embodied and shaped by the empirically observable actions of Christians. So I have no intention of excusing Christianity or Islam or any other faith system from careful analysis. Given certain conditions, Christianity, Islam, and other faiths can and do contribute to violence.

But what is implied in the conventional wisdom that religion is prone to violence is that Christianity, Islam, and other faiths are more inclined toward violence than ideologies and institutions that are identified as “secular.” It is this story that I will challenge here. I will do so in two steps. First, I will show that the division of ideologies and institutions into the categories “religious” and “secular” is an arbitrary and incoherent division. When we examine academic arguments that religion causes violence, we find that what does or does not count as religion is based on subjective and indefensible assumptions. As a result certain kinds of violence are condemned, and others are ignored. Second, I ask, “If the idea that there is something called ‘religion’ that is more violent than so-called ‘secular’ phenomena is so incoherent, why is the idea so pervasive?” The answer, I think, is that we in the West find it comforting and ideologically useful. The myth of religious violence helps create a blind spot about the violence of the putatively secular nation-state. We like to believe that the liberal state arose to make peace between warring religious factions. Today, the Western liberal state is charged with the burden of creating peace in the face of the cruel religious fanaticism of the Muslim world. The myth of religious violence promotes a dichotomy between us in the secular West who are rational and peacemaking, and them , the hordes of violent religious fanatics in the Muslim world. Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peacemaking, and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into the higher rationality.

The Incoherence of the Argument

The English-speaking academic world has been inundated—especially since September 11, 2001—by books and articles attempting to explain why religion has a peculiar tendency toward violence. They come from authors in many different fields: sociology, political science, religious studies, history, theology. I don’t have time here to analyze each argument in depth, but I will examine a variety of examples—taken from some of the most prominent books on the subject—of what they all have in common: an inability to find a convincing way to separate religious violence from secular violence.

Charles Kimball’s book When Religion Becomes Evil begins with the following claim: “It is somewhat trite, but nevertheless sadly true, to say that more wars have been waged, more people killed, and these days more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history.” 1 Kimball apparently considers this claim too trite to need proving, for he makes no attempt to reinforce it with evidence. If one were to try to prove it, one would need a concept of religion that would be at least theoretically separable from other institutional forces over the course of history. Kimball does not identify those rival institutional forces, but an obvious contender might be political institutions: tribes, empires, kingdoms, fiefs, states, and so on. The problem is that religion was not considered something separable from such political institutions until the modern era, and then primarily in the West. What sense could be made of separating out Egyptian or Roman “religion” from the Egyptian or Roman “state”? Is Aztec “politics” to blame for their bloody human sacrifices, or is Aztec “religion” to blame? As Wilfred Cantwell Smith showed in his landmark 1962 book, The Meaning and End of Religion , “religion” as a discrete category of human activity separable from “culture,” “politics,” and other areas of life is an invention of the modern West. In the course of a detailed historical study of the concept “religion,” Smith was compelled to conclude that in premodern Europe there was no significant concept equivalent to what we think of as “religion,” and furthermore there is no “closely equivalent concept in any culture that has not been influenced by the modern West.” 2 Since Smith’s book, Russell McCutcheon, Richard King, Derek Peterson, and a host of other scholars have demonstrated how European colonial bureaucrats invented the concept of religion in the course of categorizing non-Western colonized cultures as irrational and antimodern. 3

Now that we do have a separate concept of “religion,” though, is the concept a coherent one? Jonathan Z. Smith writes: “Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study . . . . Religion has no independent existence apart from the academy.” 4 Brian C. Wilson says that the inability to define religion is “almost an article of methodological dogma” in the field of religious studies. 5 Timothy Fitzgerald argues that there is no coherent concept of religion; the term should be regarded as a form of mystification and scrapped. 6 We have one group of scholars convinced that religion causes violence, and another group of scholars which does not think that there is such a thing as “religion,” except as an intellectual construct of highly dubious value.

The former group carries on as if the latter did not exist. Kimball is one of the few who acknowledges the problem, but he dismisses it as merely semantic. Describing how flustered his students become when he asks them to write a definition of “religion,” Kimball asserts, “Clearly these bright students know what religion is”; they just have trouble defining it. After all, Kimball assures us, “Religion is a central feature of human life. We all see many indications of it every day, and we all know it when we see it.” 7 When an academic says such a thing, you should react as you would when a used car salesman says, “Everybody knows this is a good car.” The fact is that we don’t all know it when we see it. A survey of religious studies literature finds totems, witchcraft, the rights of man, Marxism, liberalism, Japanese tea ceremonies, nationalism, sports, free market ideology, and a host of other institutions and practices treated under the rubric “religion.” 8 If one tries to limit the definition of religion to belief in God or gods, then certain belief systems that are usually called “religions” are eliminated, such as Theravada Buddhism and Confucianism. If the definition is expanded to include such belief systems, then all sorts of practices, including many that are usually labeled “secular,” fall under the definition of religion. Many institutions and ideologies that do not explicitly refer to God or gods function in the same way as those that do. The case for nationalism as a religion, for example, has been made repeatedly from Carlton Hayes’s 1960 classic Nationalism: A Religion to more recent works by Peter van der Veer, Talal Asad, Carolyn Marvin, and others. 9 Carolyn Marvin argues that “nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States.” 10

At this point I can imagine an objection being raised that goes like this: “So the concept of religion has some fuzzy edges. So does every concept. We might not be able to nail down, once and for all and in all cases, what a ‘culture’ is, or what qualifies as ‘politics,’ for example, but nevertheless the concepts remain useful. All may not agree on the periphery of these concepts, but sufficient agreement on the center of such concepts makes them practical and functional. Most people know that ‘religion’ includes Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the major ‘world religions.’ Whether or not Buddhism or Confucianism fits is a boundary dispute best left up to scholars who make their living splitting hairs.”

This appears to be a commonsense response, but it misses the point rather completely. In the first place, when some scholars question whether the category of religion is useful at all, it is more than a boundary dispute. There are some who do not believe there is a center. In the second place, and much more significantly, the problem with the “religion and violence” arguments is not that their working definitions of religion are too fuzzy. The problem is precisely the opposite. Their implicit definitions of religion are unjustifiably clear about what does and does not qualify as a religion. Certain belief systems, like Islam, are condemned, while certain others, like nationalism, are arbitrarily ignored.

This becomes most apparent when the authors in question attempt to explain why religion is so prone to violence. Although theories vary, we can sort them into three categories: religion is absolutist, religion is divisive, and religion is irrational. Many authors appeal to more than one of these arguments. In the face of evidence that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as absolutist, divisive, or irrational, these authors tend to erect an arbitrary barrier between “secular” and “religious” ideologies and institutions, and ignore the former.

Consider the case of the preeminent historian Martin Marty. In a book on public religion, Politics, Religion, and the Common Good , Marty argues that religion has a particular tendency to be divisive and therefore violent. When it comes to defining what “religion” means, however, Marty lists 17 different definitions of religion, then begs off giving his own definition, since, he says, “[s]cholars will never agree on the definition of religion.” Instead, Marty gives a list of five “features” that mark a religion. He then proceeds to show how “politics” displays all five of the same features. Religion focuses our ultimate concern, and so does politics. Religion builds community, and so does politics. Religion appeals to myth and symbol, and politics “mimics” this appeal in devotion to the flag, war memorials, and so on. Religion uses rites and ceremonies, such as circumcision and baptism, and “[p]olitics also depends on rites and ceremonies,” even in avowedly secular nations. Religion requires followers to behave in certain ways, and “[p]olitics and governments also demand certain behaviors.” In offering five defining features of “religion,” and showing how “politics” fits all five, he is trying to show how closely intertwined religion and politics are, but he ends up demolishing any theoretical basis for separating the two. Nevertheless, he continues on to warn of the dangers of religion, while ignoring the violent tendencies of supposedly “secular” politics. For example, Marty cites the many cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses who were attacked, beaten, tarred, castrated, and imprisoned in the United States in the 1940s because they believed that followers of Jesus Christ should not salute a flag. One would think that he would draw the obvious conclusion that zealous nationalism can cause violence. Instead, Marty concludes: “it became obvious that religion, which can pose ‘us’ versus ‘them’ . . . carries risks and can be perceived by others as dangerous. Religion can cause all kinds of trouble in the public arena.” 11 For Marty, “religion” refers not to the ritual vowing of allegiance to a flag, but only to the Jehovah’s Witnesses refusal to do so.

As you can see, we need not rely only on McCutcheon, Smith, King, Fitzgerald, and the rest to show us that the religious/secular dichotomy is incoherent. Religion-and-violence theorists inevitably undermine their own distinctions. Take, for example, sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer’s book Terror in the Mind of God , perhaps the most widely influential academic book on religion and violence. According to Juergensmeyer, religion exacerbates the tendency to divide people into friends and enemies, good and evil, us and them, by ratcheting divisions up to a cosmic level. “What makes religious violence particularly savage and relentless” is that it puts worldly conflicts in a “larger than life” context of “cosmic war.” Secular political conflicts—that is, “more rational” conflicts, such as those over land—are of a fundamentally different character than those in which the stakes have been raised by religious absolutism to cosmic proportions. Religious violence differs from secular violence in that it is symbolic, absolutist, and unrestrained by historical time. 12

However, keeping the notion of cosmic war separate from secular political war is impossible on Juergensmeyer’s own terms. Juergensmeyer undermines this distinction in the course of his own analysis. For example, what he says about cosmic war is virtually indistinguishable from what he says about war in general:

Looking closely at the notion of war, one is confronted with the idea of dichotomous opposition on an absolute scale. . . . War suggests an all-or-nothing struggle against an enemy whom one assumes to be determined to destroy. No compromise is deemed possible. The very existence of the opponent is a threat, and until the enemy is either crushed or contained, one’s own existence cannot be secure. What is striking about a martial attitude is the certainty of one’s position and the willingness to defend it, or impose it on others, to the end. Such certitude on the part of one side may be regarded as noble by those whose sympathies lie with it and dangerous by those who do not. But either way it is not rational. 13

War provides an excuse not to compromise. In other words, “War provides a reason to be violent. This is true even if the worldly issues at heart in the dispute do not seem to warrant such a ferocious position.” The division between mundane secular war and cosmic war vanishes as fast as it was constructed. According to Juergensmeyer, war itself is a “worldview”; indeed, “The concept of war provides cosmology, history, and eschatology and offers the reins of political control.” “Like the rituals provided by religious traditions, warfare is a participatory drama that exemplifies—and thus explains—the most profound aspects of life.” Here, war itself is a kind of religious practice.

At times Juergensmeyer admits the difficulty of separating religious violence from mere political violence. “Much of what I have said about religious terrorism in this book may be applied to other forms of political violence—especially those that are ideological and ethnic in nature.” 14 In Juergensmeyer’s earlier book, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State , he writes: “Secular nationalism, like religion, embraces what one scholar calls ‘a doctrine of destiny.’ One can take this way of looking at secular nationalism a step further and state flatly . . . that secular nationalism is ‘a religion.’ “ 15 These are important concessions. If true, however, they subvert the entire basis of his argument, which is the sharp divide between religious and secular violence.

Other theorists of religion and violence make similar admissions. Kimball, for example, says in passing that “blind religious zealotry is similar to unfettered nationalism,” and, indeed, nationalism would seem to fit—at times—all five of Kimball’s “warning signs” for when religion turns evil: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishment of ideal times, ends justifying means, and the declaration of holy war. The last one would seem to preclude secular ideologies, but as Kimball himself points out, the United States regularly invokes a “cosmic dualism” in its war on terror. 16 Political theorist Bhikhu Parekh similarly undermines his own point in his article on religious violence. According to Parekh,

Although religion can make a valuable contribution to political life, it can also be a pernicious influence, as liberals rightly highlight. It is often absolutist, self-righteous, arrogant, dogmatic, and impatient of compromise. It arouses powerful and sometimes irrational impulses and can easily destabilize society, cause political havoc, and create a veritable hell on earth. . . . It often breeds intolerance of other religions as well as of internal dissent, and has a propensity towards violence. 17

Parekh does not define religion, but assumes the validity of the religious/secular distinction. Nevertheless, he admits that “several secular ideologies, such as some varieties of Marxism, conservatism, and even liberalism have a quasi-religious orientation and form, and conversely formally religious languages sometimes have a secular content, so that the dividing line between a secular and a religious language is sometimes difficult to draw.” 18 If this is true, where does it leave his searing indictment of the dangers peculiarly inherent to religion? Powerful irrational impulses are popping up all over, including in liberalism itself, forcing the creation of the category “quasi-religious” to try somehow to corral them all back under the heading of “religion.” But if liberalism—which is based on the distinction between religion and the secular—is itself a kind of religion, then the religious/secular distinction crumbles into a heap of contradictions.

For some religion-and-violence theorists, the contradictions are resolved by openly expanding the definition of “religion” to include ideologies and practices that are usually called “secular.” In his book Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion , religious studies scholar Richard Wentz blames violence on absolutism. People create absolutes out of fear of their own limitations. Absolutes are projections of a fictional limited self, and people react with violence when others do not accept them. Religion has a peculiar tendency toward absolutism, says Wentz, but he casts a very wide net when considering religion. Wentz believes that religiousness is an inescapable universal human characteristic displayed even by those who reject what is called “organized religion.” Faith in technology, secular humanism, consumerism, football fanaticism, and a host of other worldviews can be counted as religions, too. Wentz is compelled to conclude, rather lamely, “Perhaps all of us do bad things in the name of (or as a representative of) religion.” 19

Wentz should be commended for his consistency in not trying to erect an artificial division between “religious” and “secular” types of absolutism. The price of consistency, however, is that he evacuates his own argument of explanatory force or usefulness. The word “religion” in the title of his book— Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion —ends up meaning anything people do that gives their lives order and meaning. A more economical title for his book would have been Why People Do Bad Things . The term “religion” is so broad that it serves no useful analytical purpose.

At this point, the religion-and-violence theorist might try to salvage the argument by saying something like this: “Surely secular ideologies such as nationalism can get out of hand, but religion has a much greater tendency toward fanaticism because the object of its truth claims is absolute in ways that secular claims are not. The capitalist knows that money is just a human creation, the liberal democrat is modest about what can be known beyond human experience, the nationalist knows that a country is made of land and mortal people, but the religious believer puts faith in a god or gods or at least a transcendent reality that lays claim to absolute validity. It is this absolutism that makes obedience blind and causes the believer to subjugate all means to a transcendent end.”

The problem with this argument is that what counts as “absolute” is decided a priori and is immune to empirical testing. It is based on theological descriptions of beliefs and not on observation of the believers’ behavior. Of course Christian orthodoxy would make the theological claim that God is absolute in a way that nothing else is. The problem is that humans are constantly tempted toward idolatry, to putting what is merely relative in the place of God. It is not enough, therefore, to claim that worship of God is absolutist. The real question is, what god is actually being worshiped?

But surely, the objection might go, nobody really thinks the flag or the nation or money or sports idols are their “gods”—that is just a metaphor. However, the question is not simply one of belief, but of behavior. If a person claims to believe in the Christian God but never gets off the couch on Sunday morning and spends the rest of the week in obsessive pursuit of profit in the bond market, then what is “absolute” in that person’s life in a functional sense is probably not the Christian God. Matthew 6:24 personifies Mammon as a rival god, not in the conviction that such a divine being really exists, but from the empirical observation that people have a tendency to treat all sorts of things as absolutes.

Suppose we apply an empirical test to the question of absolutism. “Absolute” is itself a vague term, but in the “religion and violence” arguments it appears to indicate the tendency to take something so seriously that violence results. The most relevant empirically testable definition of “absolute,” then, would be “that for which one is willing to kill.” This test has the advantage of covering behavior, and not simply what one claims to believe. Now let us ask the following two questions: What percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christians would be willing to kill for their Christian faith? What percentage would be willing to kill for their country? Whether we attempt to answer these questions by survey or by observing American Christians’ behavior in wartime, it seems clear that, at least among American Christians, the nation-state is subject to far more absolutist fervor than Christianity. For most American Christians, even public evangelization is considered to be in poor taste, and yet most endorse organized slaughter on behalf of the nation as sometimes necessary and often laudable. In other countries or other traditions the results of this test might be very different. The point is that such empirical testing is of far more usefulness than general theories about the violence of “religion.”

We must conclude that there is no coherent way to isolate “religious” ideologies with a peculiar tendency toward violence from their tamer “secular” counterparts. So-called secular ideologies and institutions like nationalism and liberalism can be just as absolutist, divisive, and irrational as so-called religion. People kill for all sorts of things. An adequate approach to the problem would be resolutely empirical: under what conditions do certain beliefs and practices—jihad, the “invisible hand” of the market, the sacrificial atonement of Christ, the role of the United States as worldwide liberator—turn violent? The point is not simply that “secular” violence should be given equal attention to “religious” violence. The point is that the distinction between “secular” and “religious” violence is unhelpful, misleading, and mystifying, and should be avoided altogether.

What Is the Argument For?

If the conventional wisdom that religion causes violence is so incoherent, why is it so prevalent? I believe it is because we in the West find it useful. In domestic politics, it serves to silence representatives of certain kinds of faiths in the public sphere. The story is told repeatedly that the liberal state has learned to tame the dangerous divisiveness of contending religious beliefs by reducing them to essentially private affairs. In foreign policy, the conventional wisdom helps reinforce and justify Western attitudes and policies toward the non-Western world, especially Muslims, whose primary point of difference with the West is their stubborn refusal to tame religious passions in the public sphere. “We in the West long ago learned the sobering lessons of religious warfare and have moved toward secularization. The liberal nation-state is essentially a peacemaker. Now we only seek to share the blessings of peace with the Muslim world. Regrettably, because of their stubborn fanaticism, it is sometimes necessary to bomb them into liberal democracy.” In other words, the myth of religious violence establishes a reassuring dichotomy between their violence—which is absolutist, divisive, and irrational—and our violence—which is modest, unitive, and rational.

The myth of religious violence marks the “clash of civilizations” worldview that attributes Muslims’ animosity toward the West to their inability to learn the lessons of history and remove the baneful influence of religion from politics. Mark Juergensmeyer, for example, sets up a “new Cold War” pitting the “resurgence of parochial identities” over against “the secular West.” “Like the old Cold War, the confrontation between these new forms of culture-based politics and the secular state is global in its scope, binary in its opposition, occasionally violent, and essentially a difference of ideologies.” Although he tries to avoid demonizing “religious nationalists,” Juergensmeyer sees them as essentially “anti-modern.” The particular ferocity of religious nationalism comes from the “special relationship between religion and violence.” The question then becomes “whether religious nationalism can be made compatible with secular nationalism’s great virtues: tolerance, respect for human rights, and freedom of expression.” Given the war between “reason and religion,” however, Juergensmeyer is not optimistic; “there is ultimately no satisfactory compromise on an ideological level between religious and secular nationalism.” 20

Despite its incoherence, the idea that religion is prone to violence thus enforces a binary opposition between “the secular West” and a religious Other who is essentially irrational and violent. The conflict becomes explicable in terms of the essential qualities of the two opponents, not in terms of actual historical encounters. So, for example, Juergensmeyer attempts to explain the animosity of the religious Other toward America:

Why is America the enemy? This question is hard for observers of international politics to answer, and harder still for ordinary Americans to fathom. Many have watched with horror as their compatriots and symbols of their country have been destroyed by people whom they do not know, from cultures they can scarcely identify on a global atlas, and for reasons that do not seem readily apparent. 21

Nevertheless, Juergensmeyer is able to come up with four reasons “from the frames of reference” of America’s enemies. First, America often finds itself cast as a “secondary enemy.” “In its role as trading partner and political ally, America has a vested interest in shoring up the stability of regimes around the world. This has often put the United States in the unhappy position of being a defender and promoter of secular governments regarded by their religious opponents as primary foes.” Juergensmeyer cites as an example the case of Iran, where “America was tarred by its association with the shah.” The second reason often given is that America is the main source of “modern culture,” which includes cultural products that others regard as immoral. Third, corporations that trade internationally tend to be based in the United States. Fourth and finally, the fear of globalization has led to a “paranoid vision of American leaders’ global designs.”

Juergensmeyer acknowledges, “Like all stereotypes, each of these characterizations holds a certain amount of truth.” The fall of the Soviet Union has left the United States as the only military superpower, and therefore “an easy target for blame when people have felt that their lives were going askew or were being controlled by forces they could not readily see. Yet, to dislike America is one thing; to regard it as a cosmic enemy is quite another.” The main problem, according to Juergensmeyer, is “satanization,” that is, taking a simple opponent and casting it as a superhuman enemy in a cosmic war. Osama bin Laden, for example, had inflated America into a “mythic monster.” 22

The problem with Juergensmeyer’s analysis is not just its sanitized account of colonial history, where the United States just happens to find itself associated with bad people. The problem is that history is subordinated to an essentialist account of “religion” in which the religious Others cannot seem to deal rationally with world events. They employ guilt by association. They have paranoid visions of globalization. They stereotype, and blame easy targets, when their lives are disrupted by forces they do not understand. They blow simple oppositions up into cosmic proportions. Understanding Muslim hostility toward America therefore does not require careful scrutiny of America’s historical dealings with the Muslim world. Rather, Juergensmeyer turns our attention to the tendency of such “religious” actors to misunderstand such historical events, to blow them out of proportion. Understanding Iranian Shi’ite militancy does not seem to require careful examination of U.S. support for overthrowing Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and for the shah’s 26-year reign of terror that was to follow. Instead, Juergensmeyer puzzles over why “religious” actors project such mundane things as torture and coups and oil trading into factors in a cosmic war. Juergensmeyer’s analysis is comforting for us in the West because it creates a blind spot regarding our own history of violence. It calls attention to anticolonial violence, labeled “religious,” and calls attention away from colonial violence, labeled “secular.”

The argument that religion is prone to violence is a significant component in the construction of an opposition between “the West and the rest,” as Samuel Huntington puts it. 23 Huntington’s famous thesis about the “clash of civilizations” was first put forward by Bernard Lewis in an article entitled “The Roots of Muslim Rage”: “It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps irrational but surely historic reactions of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.” 24 As in Juergensmeyer, actual historical issues and policies and events are transcended by a consideration of the irrationality of the Muslim response to the West. The West is a monolithic reality representing modernity, which necessarily includes secularity and rationality, while the Muslim world is an equally monolithic reality which is ancient, that is, lagging behind modernity, because of its essentially religious and irrational character. This opposition of rational and irrational, secular and religious, Western and Muslim is not simply descriptive, but helps to create the opposition that it purports to describe. As Roxanne Euben writes in her study of Islamic fundamentalism, this opposition is part of a larger Enlightenment narrative in which defining reason requires its irrational other:

[E]mbedded in the Enlightenment’s (re-)definition and elevation of reason is the creation and subjection of an irrational counterpart: along with the emergence of reason as both the instrument and essence of human achievement, the irrational came to be defined primarily in opposition to what such thinkers saw as the truths of their own distinctive historical epoch. If they were the voices of modernity, freedom, liberation, happiness, reason, nobility, and even natural passion, the irrational was all that came before: tyranny, servility to dogma, self-abnegation, superstition, and false religion. Thus the irrational came to mean the domination of religion in the historical period that preceded it. 25

The problem with grafting Islamic fundamentalism into this narrative, according to Euben, is that it is incapable of understanding the appeal of fundamentalism on its own terms. It dismisses rather than explains. 26 It also exacerbates the enmity that it purports to describe. As Emran Qureshi and Michael Sells put it, “Those who proclaim such a clash of civilizations, speaking for the West or for Islam, exhibit the characteristics of fundamentalism: the assumption of a static essence, knowable immediately, of each civilization, the ability to ignore history and tradition, and the desire to lead the ideological battle on behalf of one of the clashing civilizations.” 27

In other words, the opposition of “religious” violence to “secular” peaceableness can lend itself to the justification of violence. In the book Terror and Liberalism, The New Republic contributing editor Paul Berman’s call for a “liberal war of liberation” to be “fought around the world” is based on the contrast between liberalism and what he calls the “mad” ideology of Islamism. 28 Similarly, Andrew Sullivan, in a New York Times Magazine article entitled “This Is a Religious War,” justifies war against radical Islam on epistemological grounds. He labels it a “religious war,” but not in the sense of Islam versus Christianity and Judaism. It is, rather, radical Islam versus Western-style “individual faith and pluralism.” The problem with the Islamic world seems to be too much public faith, a loyalty to an absolute that excludes accommodation to other realities: “If faith is that strong, and it dictates a choice between action or eternal damnation, then violence can easily be justified.” 29

At root, the problem is epistemological. According to Sullivan, it took Western Christians centuries of bloody “religious wars” to realize “the futility of fighting to the death over something beyond human understanding and so immune to any definitive resolution.” The problem with religion is that authoritative truth is simply not available to us mortals in any form that will produce consensus rather than division. Locke, therefore, emerges as Sullivan’s hero, for it was Locke who recognized the limits of human understanding of revelation and enshrined those limits in a political theory. Locke and the founding fathers saved us from the curse of killing in the name of religion. “What the founders and Locke were saying was that the ultimate claims of religion should simply not be allowed to interfere with political and religious freedom.” 30

In theory, we have the opposition of a cruel fanaticism with a modest and peaceloving tolerance. However, Sullivan’s epistemological modesty applies only to the command of God and not to the absolute superiority of our political and cultural system over theirs. According to Sullivan, “We are fighting for the universal principles of our Constitution.” Universal knowledge is available to us after all, and it underwrites the “epic battle” we are currently waging against fundamentalisms of all kinds. Sullivan is willing to gird himself with the language of a warrior and underwrite U.S. military adventures in the Middle East in the name of his secular faith. Sullivan entitles his piece “This Is a Religious War,” though the irony seems to elude him. On the surface, the myth of religious violence establishes a dichotomy between our peaceloving secular reasonableness and their irrational religious fanaticism. Under the surface often lies an absolute “religious” devotion to the American vision of a hegemonic liberalism that underwrites the necessity of using violence to impose this vision on the Muslim other.

Sam Harris’s book about the violence of religion, The End of Faith , dramatically illustrates this double standard. Harris condemns the irrational religious torture of witches, but provides his own argument for torturing terrorists. Harris’s book is charged with the conviction that the secular West cannot reason with Muslims, but must deal with them by force. In a chapter entitled “The Problem with Islam,” Harris writes: “In our dialogue with the Muslim world, we are confronted by people who hold beliefs for which there is no rational justification and which therefore cannot even be discussed, and yet these are the very beliefs that underlie many of the demands they are likely to make upon us.” This is especially a problem if such people gain access to nuclear weapons. “There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. . . . In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe.” Muslims then would likely misinterpret this act of “self-defense” as a genocidal crusade, thus plunging the world into nuclear holocaust. “All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns.”

In other words, if we have to slaughter millions through a nuclear first strike, it will be the fault of the Muslims and their crazy religious beliefs. Before we get to that point, Harris continues, we must encourage civil society in Islamic countries, but we cannot trust them to vote it in. “It seems all but certain that some form of benign dictatorship will generally be necessary to bridge the gap. But benignity is the key—and if it cannot emerge from within a state, it must be imposed from without. The means of such imposition are necessarily crude: they amount to economic isolation, military intervention (whether open or covert), or some combination of both. While this may seem an exceedingly arrogant doctrine to espouse, it appears we have no alternatives.” 31

Harris’s book is a particularly blunt version of this type of justification for neocolonial intervention, but he is by no means isolated. His book is enthusiastically endorsed by such academic superstars as Alan Dershowitz, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Singer. Indeed, Harris’s logic is little different in practice from the Bush Doctrine, which says that America has access to liberal values that are “right and true for every person, in every society,” that we must use our power to promote such values “on every continent,” and that America will take preemptive military action if necessary to promote such values. 32 Today, the U.S. military is attempting, through the massive use of violence, to liberate Iraq from religious violence. It is an inherently contradictory effort, and its every failure will be attributed in part to the pernicious influence of religion and its tendency toward violence. If we really wish to understand its failure, however, we will need to question the very myth of religious violence on which such military adventures depend.

• Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 1.
• Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (Macmillan, 1962), 19.
• See, for example, Russell McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (Oxford University Press, 1997); Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East’ (Routledge, 1999); The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History , ed. Derek Peterson and Darren Walhof (Rutgers University Press, 2003).
• Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (University of Chicago Press, 1982), xi.
• Brian C. Wilson, “From the Lexical to the Polythetic: A Brief History of the Definition of Religion,” in What Is Religion? Origins, Definitions, and Explanations (Brill, 1998).
• Timothy Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford University Press, 2000).
• Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil , 15.
• See Fitzgerald, Ideology of Religious Studies , 17.
• Carlton Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion (Macmillan, 1960); Peter van der Veer, “The Moral State: Religion, Nation, and Empire in Victorian Britain and British India,” in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia , ed. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (Princeton University Press, 1999), 3-9; Talal Asad, “Religion, Nation-state, Secularism,” in Nation and Religion , 178-91; Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
• Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle, “Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 768.
• Martin Marty, with Jonathan Moore, Politics, Religion, and the Common Good: Advancing a Distinctly American Conversation About Religion’s Role in Our Shared Life (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000), 25-26, 10-14, 24.
• Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (University of California Press, 2000), 146, 153, 154, 217.
• Ibid., 148-49.
• Ibid., 149, 155, 217.
• Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (University of California Press, 1993), 15.
• Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil , 38, 36.
• Bhikhu Parekh, “The Voice of Religion in Political Discourse,” in Religion, Politics, and Peace , ed. Leroy Rouner (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 72.
• Richard E. Wentz, Why People Do Bad Things in the Name of Religion (Mercer University Press, 1993), 37.
• Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? 1-2, 5, 8, 201.
• Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God , 179.
• Ibid., 180, 181, 182.
• Samuel Huntington, “If Not Civilizations, What?” Foreign Affairs 72 (November/December 1993): 192.
• Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” Atlantic Monthly , September 1990, 60.
• Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism (Princeton University Press, 1999), 34.
• Ibid., 14–15.
• “Introduction: Constructing the Muslim Enemy,” in The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy , ed. Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells (Columbia University Press, 2003), 28-29.
• Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (W. W. Norton, 2003), 191, 182. Berman takes issue with Huntington’s “clash” thesis, saying that only Islamists see the conflict in such epic terms. “They also looked upon every new event around the world as a stage in Judaism’s cosmic struggle against Islam. Their ideology was mad. In wars between liberalism and totalitarianism, the totalitarian picture of the war is always mad.”
• Andrew Sullivan, “This Is a Religious War,” New York Times Magazine , October 7, 2001, 44, 47.
• Ibid., 46-47, 53.
• Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), 87-92, 192-99, 128-29, 151.
• The National Security Strategy of the United States of America , September 2002, prologue and p. 15.

William T. Cavanaugh is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author, most recently, of Theopolitical Imagination: Discovering the Liturgy as a Political Act in an Age of Global Consumerism . This essay was presented earlier this year as part of a Lenten series sponsored by Harvard’s Memorial Church and Episcopal chaplaincy.

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By Eric Brahm

November 2005  

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a casual glance at world affairs would suggest that religion is at the core of much of the strife around the globe. Often, religion is a contentious issue. Where eternal salvation is at stake, compromise can be difficult at or even sinful. Religion is also important because, as a central part of many individuals' identity, any threat to one's beliefs is a threat to one's very being. This is a primary motivation for ethno-religious nationalists.

However, the relationship between religion and conflict is, in fact, a complex one. Religiously-motivated peace builders have played important roles in addressing many conflicts around the world. This aspect of religion and conflict is discussed in the parallel essay on religion and peace . This essay considers some of the means through which religion can be a source of conflict.

Religion and Conflict

Although not necessarily so, there are some aspects of religion that make it susceptible to being a latent source of conflict. All religions have their accepted dogma, or articles of belief, that followers must accept without question. This can lead to inflexibility and intolerance in the face of other beliefs. After all, if it is the word of God, how can one compromise it? At the same time, scripture and dogma are often vague and open to interpretation. Therefore, conflict can arise over whose interpretation is the correct one, a conflict that ultimately cannot be solved because there is no arbiter . The winner generally is the interpretation that attracts the most followers. However, those followers must also be motivated to action. Although, almost invariably, the majority of any faith hold moderate views, they are often more complacent, whereas extremists are motivated to bring their interpretation of God's will to fruition.

Religious extremists can contribute to conflict escalation . They see radical measures as necessary to fulfilling God's wishes. Fundamentalists of any religion tend to take a Manichean view of the world. If the world is a struggle between good and evil, it is hard to justify compromising with the devil. Any sign of moderation can be decried as selling out, more importantly, of abandoning God's will.

Some groups, such as America's New Christian Right and Jama'at-i-Islami of Pakistan, have operated largely through constitutional means though still pursue intolerant ends. In circumstances where moderate ways are not perceived to have produced results, whether social, political, or economic, the populace may turn to extreme interpretations for solutions. Without legitimate mechanisms for religious groups to express their views, they may be more likely to resort to violence. Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine have engaged in violence, but they also gained supporters through social service work when the government is perceived as doing little for the population. Radical Jewish cells in Israel and Hindu nationalists and Sikh extremists in India are other examples of fundamentalist movements driven by perceived threat to the faith. Religious revivalism is powerful in that it can provide a sense of pride and purpose, but in places such as Sri Lanka and Sudan it has produced a strong form of illiberal nationalism that has periodically led to intolerance and discrimination .[1] Some religious groups, such as the Kach and Kahane Chai parties in Israel or Egypt's Islamic Jihad, consider violence to be a ‘duty'.[2] Those who call for violence see themselves as divinely directed and therefore obstacles must be eliminated.

Many religions also have significant strains of evangelism, which can be conflictual. Believers are called upon to spread the word of God and increase the numbers of the flock. For example, the effort to impose Christianity on subject peoples was an important part of the conflict surrounding European colonization. Similarly, a group may seek to deny other religions the opportunity to practice their faith. In part, this is out of a desire to minimize beliefs the dominant group feels to be inferior or dangerous. Suppression of Christianity in China and the Sudan are but two contemporary examples. In the case of China, it is not a conflict between religions, but rather the government views religion as a dangerous rival for citizens' loyalties. All of these instances derive from a lack of respect for other faiths.

Religious fundamentalists are primarily driven by displeasure with modernity.[3] Motivated by the marginalization of religion in modern society, they act to restore faith to a central place. There is a need for purification of the religion in the eyes of fundamentalists. Recently, cultural globalization has in part become shorthand for this trend. The spread of Western materialism is often blamed for increases in gambling, alcoholism, and loose morals in general. Al-Qaeda, for example, claims it is motivated by this neo-imperialism as well as the presence of foreign military forces in the Muslim holy lands. The liberal underpinning of Western culture is also threatening to tradition in prioritizing the individual over the group, and by questioning the appropriate role for women in society. Of course, the growth of the New Christian Right in the United States indicates that Westerners too feel that modern society is missing something. Conflict over abortion and the teaching of evolution in schools are but two examples of issues where some groups feel religious tradition has been abandoned.

Religious nationalists too can produce extremist sentiment. Religious nationalists tend to view their religious traditions as so closely tied to their nation or their land that any threat to one of these is a threat to one's existence. Therefore, religious nationalists respond to threats to the religion by seeking a political entity in which their faith is privileged at the expense of others. In these contexts, it is also likely that religious symbols will come to be used to forward ethnic or nationalist causes. This has been the case for Catholics in Northern Ireland, the Serbian Orthodox church in Milosevic's Yugoslavia, and Hindu nationalists in India.

Popular portrayals of religion often reinforce the view of religion being conflictual. The global media has paid significant attention to religion and conflict, but not the ways in which religion has played a powerful peacemaking role. This excessive emphasis on the negative side of religion and the actions of religious extremists generates interfaith fear and hostility. What is more, media portrayals of religious conflict have tended to do so in such a way so as to confuse rather than inform. It does so by misunderstanding goals and alliances between groups, thereby exacerbating polarization . The tendency to carelessly throw around the terms ‘fundamentalist' and ‘extremist' masks significant differences in beliefs, goals, and tactics.

Religion and Latent Conflict

In virtually every heterogeneous society, religious difference serves as a source of potential conflict. Because individuals are often ignorant of other faiths, there is some potential tension but it does not necessarily mean conflict will result. Religion is not necessarily conflictual but, as with ethnicity or race, religion serves, as a way to distinguish one's self and one's group from the other. Often, the group with less power, be it political or economic, is more aware of the tension than the privileged. When the privileged group is a minority, however, such as the Jews historically were in much of Europe, they are often well aware of the latent conflict. There are steps that can be taken at this stage to head off conflict. Interfaith dialogue , discussed further below, can increase understanding. Intermediaries may help facilitate this.

Religion and Conflict Escalation

With religion a latent source of conflict, a triggering event can cause the conflict to escalate. At this stage in a conflict, grievances, goals, and methods often change in such a way so as to make the conflict more difficult to resolve. The momentum of the conflict may give extremists the upper hand. In a crisis, group members may see extremists as those that can produce what appear to be gains, at least in the short-term. In such situations, group identities are even more firmly shaped in relation to the other group, thereby reinforcing the message of extremists that one's religion is threatened by another faith that is diametrically opposed. Often, historic grievances are recast as being the responsibility of the current enemy. Because at this stage tactics often come detached from goals, radical interpretations are increasingly favored. Once martyrs have been sacrificed, it becomes increasingly difficult to compromise because their lives will seem to have been lost in vain (see the essay on entrapment* for more on this problem).

What is to Be Done

In the eyes of many, religion is inherently conflictual, but this is not necessarily so. Therefore, in part, the solution is to promote a heightened awareness of the positive peace building and reconciliatory role religion has played in many conflict situations. More generally, fighting ignorance can go a long way. Interfaith dialogue would be beneficial at all levels of religious hierarchies and across all segments of religious communities. Where silence and misunderstanding are all too common, learning about other religions would be a powerful step forward. Being educated about other religions does not mean conversion but may facilitate understanding and respect for other faiths. Communicating in a spirit of humility and engaging in self-criticism would also be helpful.[4]

[1] David Little, "Belief, Ethnicity, and Nationalism" http://www.usip.org/religionpeace/rehr/belethnat.html .

[2] David Little, "Religious Militancy," in Managing Global Chaos, eds, Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington DC: USIP Press, 1996).

[3] R. Scott Appleby, "Religion, Conflict Transformation, and Peacebuilding," in Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict, eds, Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (Washington DC: USIP Press, 2001).

[4] David Smock, Building Interreligious Trust in a Climate of Fear: An Abrahamic Trialogue, http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr99.pdf

Use the following to cite this article: Brahm, Eric. "Religion and Conflict." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: November 2005 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/religion-and-conflict >.

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Andrew Holt, Ph.D.

History, religion, and academia.

The Myth of Religion as the Cause of Most Wars

The following essay, by Andrew Holt, is republished from John D. Hosler ‘s edited volume, Seven Myths of Military History (Hackett, 2022). It is provided here with both the permission of Professor Hosler and Hackett Publishing . Thoughtful feedback and comments are welcome and can be emailed directly to the author at [email protected].

———————-

Chapter 1. War and the Divine: Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?

Andrew Holt

“It is somewhat trite, but nevertheless sadly true, to say that more wars have been waged, more people killed, and these days more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history.”

—Richard Kimball [1]

To uproarious laughter, the late comedian and social critic George Carlin once condemned God as the cause of the “bloodiest and most brutal wars” ever fought, which were “all based on religious hatred.” He stated that millions have died simply because “God told” Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians it would be a “good idea” for them to kill each other. Carlin’s comedy routine, entitled “Kill for God!” has received rave reviews by its viewers for being “brilliant” and “spot on,” with one anonymous fan confirming that religion is “by far the single biggest cause of human deaths.” [2]

To be clear, it is not modern military historians who claim religion is the cause of most wars, but rather many prominent intellectuals, scientists, academics, and politicians, often with far greater influence over popular cultural assumptions than professional historians, who have popularized such claims. In a 2006 interview, the neuroscientist and cultural commentator Sam Harris stated, “If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. I think more people are dying as a result of our religious myths than as a result of any other ideology.” [3] The Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins claimed in 2003 that religion is the “principal label, and the most dangerous one,” by which human divisions occur, contributing to “wars, murders and terrorist attacks.” [4]

Prominent American politicians have commented similarly. Richard Nixon argued in 1983 that the “bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.” [5] Perhaps unknowingly, Nixon was following his predecessor George Washington, who remarked in a 1792 letter that “religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.” [6] That Washington held such views in the late eighteenth century is not surprising, given the rationalist spirit of his social class and times. Some of his contemporaries equally expressed their concern over the propensity for violence among traditional religious believers. Thomas Paine is perhaps most notable in this regard. In The Age of Reason he argued that “the most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been . . . the most destructive to . . . the peace and happiness of man.” [7]

Paine’s views reflect a particular strain of thought that emerged in a slightly earlier period of the European eighteenth century, which many persons then and now have referred to as the “Enlightenment.” While intellectuals of the period tended to emphasize religious toleration, many also wrote harshly about the negative social effects of traditional religion. Such concerns undoubtedly reflected the fact that they were writing in the wake of the so-called age of religious wars, during which Catholics and Protestants engaged in lengthy and destructive conflicts including, most notably, the French Wars of Religion (1562–98), the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), and the English Civil War (1642–51). [8]

None can challenge the claim that religion has often inspired or motivated violence, but has it truly been, as Harris claims, the “most prolific” source? Are, or were, religious wars, as Nixon wrote, the “bloodiest” sort of wars? Is it true that “more wars have been waged” and “more people killed” because of religion than any other institutional force, as Richard Kimball claims in the quotation that begins this essay?

Interestingly, these claims—often confidently asserted—that “more” wars have been waged and “more” people killed as a result of religion, can only be substantiated by an accounting of all major wars of which we have historical knowledge and both a means of separating the “religious” wars from other types of wars and counting the bodies. Such a list is destined to be incomplete and open to debate for many reasons, not least of which is the ambiguity surrounding many human conflicts. Was, for example, the English Civil War primarily a struggle over parliamentary rights vis-à-vis royal absolutism, or was it driven by a deep religious divide? Or was it both? Regardless of these pitfalls and uncertainties, such an accounting, no matter its imperfections, that seeks to understand the causes of particular wars and the degree of their lethality is possible. It is only with such an accounting that one can determine if religion is, indeed, the cause of most wars.

To most historians, this may seem an impossible task, with insurmountable methodological problems. Nevertheless, the critics cited here—neither specialists on warfare in any era nor trained historians—assume an ability to do this. Indeed, there is no other basis for making their claims without these assumptions.

The critics cited thus far do not provide such an accounting. Kimball and Harris imply that their claims are transparently obvious. For Kimball, religious ideologies and commitments are “indisputably central factors” in the “escalation of violence and evil around the world.” [9] He states that this “evidence is readily available,” after which he cites not data but the headlines of seven newspaper stories about contemporary religious violence. [10]

Yet this is anecdotal evidence. Moreover, alternative causality is dispensed with, as when Harris rejects out of hand the notion that the Hindu-Muslim conflict has political or economic roots. [11] Furthermore, neither author endeavors to sift through history’s wars in order to make even a rough estimate of how many were primarily motivated by religious considerations, much less offering a method for how one distinguishes “religious” wars from all other types of wars. And neither acknowledges a basic proposition that all historians would accept: that most, if not all, wars are driven by multiple factors. At what point does a preponderance of religious factors, however they might be defined, outweigh secular motives or goals allowing for a war to be categorized as a “religious” war? The critics cited here appear to consider such questions and modes of inquiry irrelevant.

Of course, one could reasonably argue that firmly distinguishing between religious and nonreligious wars is so impossible that any effort to count and categorize all known wars in this manner is doomed to failure. Indeed, as I prepared this essay, I spoke with multiple historians who all inquired how one could possibly accomplish such a task, with some intonating it is not possible due to the complexity of warfare, which is almost always based on multiple causes and motivations. If this is true—that it is essentially impossible to distinguish “religious” wars from other types of war, much less provide accurate casualty figures for all wars ancient to modern—then the debate is over: there can be no basis to the argument that the former is the most frequent cause of war and/or the bloodiest type of human conflict. In sum, Harris, Kimball, and others would have zero basis for their claims. Likewise, those who seek to refute their charges would be unable to offer anything even approaching quantifiable evidence to support their objections. Game over.

But let us not fall prey to defeatism. Complexity and ambiguity pervade historical research and are elements in every conclusion reached by every historian. With that in mind, let us dare to hazard a definition of religious warfare.

Defining “Religious Warfare”

In attempting to define religious warfare, it first seems worthwhile to consider the origin of the term “religion.” In its earliest Ciceronian sense, the Latin word religio meant to have respect or regard for the gods, as demonstrated by the performance of obligatory rites in veneration of them. [12] Although a critic of Roman religion, Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) adapted the term in such a way that it could be uniquely applied to a Christian understanding of and relationship to the sacred. For Augustine, religio meant worship, the actions by which one renders praise to God, but he also sought to separate what he understood to be true worship from false worship. [13]

Yet while many in the West think of religion as worship centered around a god or gods, accompanied by adherence to theological doctrines and rituals, such a definition fails to embrace the totality of the worldwide religious experience, both past and present. Definitions evolve and change, and modern scholars of religion have come to accept a broader definition of religion, one that phenomenologists who specialize in comparative religion now generally embrace, which sees “religion” as any spiritual or pragmatic connection with a transcendental Other. This Other could include gods (or God), sacred forces, a supreme cosmic spirit, or even a universal law, like Buddhist Dharma. [14] Consequently, if “religion” represents belief in the Divine and reverence for the Other—and these beliefs influence the thoughts, morality, and deeds of believers—then it follows that “religious wars” are those conflicts in which religious belief or devotion plays a key role in the motivation of most of their originators and/or participants.

The oft-cited Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that all wars are political. [15] Yet when religious motivations influence political goals, it becomes trickier to determine to what degree religion is the inspiration for a conflict. Must both sides in a conflict have religious motivations for it to be considered a “religious” war, or is one side sufficient? At what point do economic concerns, for example, outweigh religious concerns so that one would no longer consider a war “religious”? What if a war begins as religious but ends as an overtly political conflict, as was the case with the Thirty Years’ War? Those who make the claim that religion is the most prominent cause of violence or warfare never seem to bother with such details, yet they, nevertheless, obviously define “religious wars” broadly enough to support them.

To be clear, few would object to the proposition that religion or religious motivation often inspire violence. Many examples of religiously inspired warfare are to be found in the histories of the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, Europe, the Far East, India, the Americas, and sub-Saharan Africa by members of various religions. Spanning the ancient to modern worlds, Mesopotamians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Aztecs, and many others have embraced religious beliefs that at times led to, justified, or encouraged violence or warfare, sometimes resulting in a massive loss of human life. Yet the aforementioned critics of religious violence do not claim that religion sometimes inspires violence or warfare. If this were the case, then their claims would be noncontroversial. Instead, they claim that, more than any other factor, religious faith has led to more war throughout history and across all cultures.

If one is willing to hazard a definition of religious warfare, as I have just done, that allows for the distinct categorization of religious and nonreligious wars, then some data can be developed that might help us to evaluate these charges in a manner that is more systematic and logical than simply saying, “Your criticism of religion as the cause of most wars and bloodshed is without foundation.” As demonstrated in the remainder of this chapter, some have been willing to provide such a twofold analysis, namely to categorize wars as “religious” or otherwise and to provide death estimates for various wars. Such data are not supportive of the claims of Kimball et al. To the contrary, the only data currently available on these topics suggest that the popular claim that religion is the cause of “more” wars than anything else . . . is a myth.

Religious War by the Numbers

Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars includes an analysis of 1,763 wars covering the worldwide span of human history. It has become an influential reference in the popular sphere, often cited by persons seeking to define specific wars as religious or otherwise. [16] In their lengthy index entry on “religious wars, Phillips and Axelrod do not explain their classification methodology. They only provide clues in their limited commentary on the concept of religious wars in their introduction, where they seem to suggest that religion was often used as a sort of cover for premodern wars that resulted from more mundane causes, including territorial, ethnic, and economic concerns. [17] Yet each war they list in the index under the category “religious wars” contains clear references to its religious nature or features, providing an apparent justification for its classification as such. [18]

What, then, did Phillips and Axelrod find? Interestingly, of 1,763 wars they list only 121 entries fall under the heading “religious wars.” In one case, two wars are considered in a single entry (“Sixth and Seventh Wars of Religion”), bringing their total to 122. [19] Thus, only 6.9 percent of the wars they considered are classified as religious wars. [20] One presumes they see the remaining 93.1 percent as primarily wars that took shape due to other factors, such as geopolitics, economic rivalry, and ethnic divisions. One may certainly quibble over the omission of some wars from Phillips and Axelrod’s list, but it would take a lot of quibbling to get to the point where religious wars represent the majority (882 out of 1,763) of the wars they count and consider. They also list other categories of warfare that have higher totals than religion. Under the heading of “colonial wars,” they list 161 wars. [21] After cross-referencing both lists, one finds that Phillips and Axelrod only list two wars in both the “colonial” and “religious” categories, suggesting that they have made every effort to categorize these wars based on their primary causes, as they interpret them, rather than secondary ones. [22] Consequently, based on the total numbers presented by Phillips and Axelrod in each category, one could argue that imperialist ideologies, regardless of the latent religiosity that occasionally colors such endeavors, have historically and collectively been the primary inspiration of more wars than explicitly religious ideologies.

Again, historians could certainly look at Phillips and Axelrod’s list of religious wars and criticize the omission of many and the inclusion of some. Indeed, in my rough accounting of the 1,763 wars they list in their encyclopedia, I would likely come up with a figure of religious wars that, perhaps, doubled theirs. Other historians may arrive at still different figures, both lesser and greater, based on how they choose to categorize “religious wars.” Yet it seems highly unlikely that any historian would look at the 1,763 wars considered in the Encyclopedia of Wars and determine that a majority of them were primarily religious. If someone were to attempt to provide such a systematic accounting, their efforts would, indeed, be interesting to consider here, but nobody besides Phillips and Axelrod seems to have been bothered.

In a similar way, Matthew White, a self-described “atrocitologist,” is sometimes cited by those comparing religious wars to nonreligious wars. His 2012 book purports to list the one hundred greatest atrocities in human history, based on total deaths. [23] Although a popular-history writer, White’s work was favorably reviewed in the New York Times and has won academic acclaim in some quarters, with Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker dubbing it, in a complimentary foreword, “the most comprehensive, disinterested and statistically nuanced estimates available.” [24] Historians, as well, have praised White’s efforts. Harvard University professor of history Charles S. Maier, in the same New York Times review, praised White for trying to arrive at “the best figures” and not being, like most historians when it comes to this type of research, “afraid to get his hands dirty.” [25]

White is clear and upfront about both his methodology and the controversial nature of his statistics. He notes, for example, on the first page of his introduction, “Let’s get something out of the way right now. Everything you are about to read is disputed. . . . There is no atrocity in history that every person in the world agrees on.” [26] His methodology, as described in the Times review, is simple and transparent. He gathers all of the death estimates he can find for an event, with all data on his website available for public review, throws out the highest and lowest numbers, and then calculates the median, “arriving at what he acknowledges is often just an informed guess.” [27] Yet, White’s “informed guesses” appear to be the best ones currently available.

Like Phillips and Axelrod, White also categorizes and provides a list under the heading “Religious Conflict.” [28] He notes that it is “impossible” to find a “common cause” in the various atrocities he considers, and that they can often fall under multiple headings. For example, White lists “Cromwell’s Invasion of Ireland” under the categories of both “Religious Conflict” and “Ethnic Cleansing.” [29] Yet even allowing for this, White lists only eleven atrocities that fall under the heading of “Religious Conflict.” He provides insights into how he arrived at his list in a section of his work subtitled “Religious Killing,” while pointing out that “no war is 100 percent religious (or 100 percent anything) in motivation, but we can’t duck the fact that some conflicts involve more religion than others.” [30]

In an attempt to solve a problem we have already noted here, White then asks how we can decide if “religion is the real cause of a conflict and not just a convenient cover story?” [31] In response, he lists three primary principles that cumulatively address this question. The first is when “the only difference between the two sides is religion,” for which he cites examples of people who look alike, speak the same languages, and live in the same communities yet engage in conflict over what can only be ascribed to religious differences. This would include Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The second is an ability to describe a conflict without reference to religion or religious trappings. For this, he gives the example of the US Civil War, which he notes certainly had religious elements, but can also be described in a detailed history without ever referencing those elements. White argues this would be impossible, for example, in writing a history of the crusades. Finally, the third is when the parties themselves declare religious motives. Here White notes that “we should at least consider the possibility that they are telling the truth,” especially if there are not other significant potential reasons. [32]

With these rules in mind, White lists eleven atrocities from the one hundred that he classifies as “Religious Conflicts”: Taiping Rebellion, Thirty Years’ War, Mahdi’s Revolt, Crusades, [33] French Wars of Religion War in the Sudan Albigensian Crusade, Panthay Rebellion, Hui Rebellion, Partition of India, and Cromwell’s Invasion of Ireland. [34] Thus, according to White’s study, only 11 percent of the one hundred worst atrocities in history can be attributed, in some major part, to religion, with 89 percent primarily attributable to some other cause. Yet there are other atrocities in White’s book that seem to deserve to be grouped under a more general heading of religiously inspired atrocities, even if they do not meet his definition of “conflict.” These include the Roman gladiatorial games and Aztec human sacrifice, both of which White categorized separately under “Human Sacrifice.” [35] If we add these two atrocities to the eleven listed under religious conflict, this would bring the total of the one hundred greatest atrocities, based on White’s death estimates, attributed primarily to religious motivations (a broader category than just “conflicts”) up to thirteen, or only 13 percent.

A final breakdown, depending on how one evaluates White’s work, is therefore as follows: 11/100 (or 11 percent) of the worst atrocities in history can be ascribed to “Religious Conflict,” and 13/100 (or 13 percent) of the worst atrocities in history can be ascribed to “Religious Conflict” or “Human Sacrifice.” Although these percentages are higher than Phillips and Axelrod’s more comprehensive findings (6.9 percent), none supports the claim that religion has been and remains the cause of most wars. Indeed, “Hegemonial War,” a category that White defines as similar countries fighting “over who’s number 1,” and “Failed State” conflicts, involving the collapse of a central government and the division of lands among warlords that results from the civil war that follows, individually account for more of the “worst atrocities” on his list than “Religious Conflict.” [36]

Again, one may quibble about White’s categories, arguing that he omitted some significant wars and instances of mass violence or incorrectly included others, but it seems highly unlikely that any historian reviewing White’s list of the one hundred greatest atrocities in history would see a majority of them as primarily religious. An alternative accounting would be welcome for consideration here, but nobody else has offered one, certainly none of the prominent voices proclaiming religion as the cause of the “bloodiest” wars.

Steven Pinker has provided his own rankings, based largely on White’s research, of the twenty-one worst wars or atrocities based on death tolls in his widely reviewed 2011 book, Better Angels . [37] His list includes the following: Second World War, reign of Mao Zedong, Mongol conquests, An Lushan Revolt, fall of the Ming dynasty, Taiping Rebellion, annihilation of the American Indians, rule of Joseph Stalin, Mideast slave trade, Atlantic slave trade, rule of Tamerlane, British rule of India, World War I, Russian Civil War, fall of Rome, Congo Free State, Thirty Years’ War, Russia’s Time of Troubles, Napoleonic Wars, Chinese Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion. Pinker then provides a unique perspective by factoring in population differences at the times such events occurred. While Pinker lists 55,000,000 deaths resulting from World War II in the mid-twentieth century and only 36,000,000 for the An Lushan Revolt in mid-eighth-century China, he then uses population estimates to adjust the rankings per capita between the different periods. [38] Using this “mid-twentieth-century equivalent,” he finds that the An Lushan Revolt would move from fourth place to first place on his list with a mid-twentieth-century equivalent of 429,000,000 deaths, far surpassing World War II. [39]

While Pinker singles out religious conflicts/events in neither his ranking based on total deaths nor his population-adjusted rankings, it is interesting to note that religious conflicts appear to play a minor role in both. Only three of the conflicts would clearly seem to qualify as primarily religious conflicts or religiously inspired events: the Taiping Rebellion, the Thirty-Years’ War, and the French Wars of Religion, resulting in only 14.2 percent of the twenty-one worst atrocities in history as referenced by Pinker. It is worth pointing out that at least four of the twenty-one atrocities listed by Pinker could be attributed not to religion but rather Marxist efforts to establish or develop communist states, including the reign of Mao Zedong, the reign of Stalin, the Russian Civil War, and the Chinese Civil War, equaling 19 percent of the total. Consequently, one could argue that Marxism is a greater cause of violence and atrocities in Pinker’s study than religion!

The numbers, therefore, as provided by our three major studies to enumerate history’s most violent wars and conflicts, break down as follows: 6.9 percent of Phillips and Axelrod’s 1,763 historical wars were religious conflicts; 13 percent of White’s 100 worst atrocities in history can be ascribed to “Religious Conflict” or “Human Sacrifice”; and 14.2 percent of Pinker’s 21 worst atrocities in history were religiously inspired. Thus, our only existing quantitative analyses suggest that religious motivations inspire only a relatively small percentage of all conflicts. Moreover, there seem to be other causes or motivations that have inspired more wars or atrocities than religion.

Distinguishing Religious Wars from Secular Wars

One can disagree with such an approach in considering to what degree religion was the cause of a particular conflict. Such disagreements among historians are not surprising. War is messy, after all, and conflicts usually emerge from a complex mix of factors that might incorporate economic, political, ethnic, and religious concerns on one or both sides.

William T. Cavanaugh, a theologian and professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University, has considered the issue of defining and distinguishing religious warfare from other types of conflict in a highly influential 2009 book. Cavanaugh argues that various scholars have made “indefensible assumptions about what does and does not count as religion.” [40] He considers the claims of nine scholars who have suggested that “religion is particularly prone to violence” based on arguments that religion is, among other things, absolutist, divisive, and/or irrational. [41] He rejects their respective arguments, noting that “they all suffer from the same defect: the inability to find a convincing way to separate religious violence from secular violence.” [42] Indeed, as Cavanaugh argues, secular violence is often motivated by similar degrees of absolutism, division, and irrationality, but in nonreligious forms.

Among the scholars that Cavanaugh considers is Charles Kimball. He argues that Kimball’s book (which, incidentally, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as the top book on religion in 2002) “suffers” from its inability to “distinguish the religious from the secular.” [43] Kimball postulates that there are various “warning signs” that religion could turn evil. Among such warning signs, for example, are calls for blind obedience and the belief that the end justifies the means. Cavanaugh argues in rebuttal that all of the warning signs offered by Kimball could equally apply to nationalism or nationalist ideologies. Concerning Kimball’s claim about blind obedience as a marker of religious conflict, for example, Cavanaugh points out that “obedience is institutionalized” in the US military, as there is no allowance for “selective conscientious objection.” [44] Yet Cavanaugh appears most dismissive of the claim that the end justifies the means is uniquely associated with religious conflict, noting that the history of modern conflict is “full of evidence” that demonstrates how secular states have embraced such a view. Among such evidence, he references “the vaporization of innocent civilians in Hiroshima” and “the practice of torture by over a third of the world’s nation states, including many democracies.” [45]

To be clear, Cavanaugh is not rejecting the notion that religion can sometimes inspire violence. Instead, he is arguing that Kimball’s efforts to clearly distinguish religious violence as somehow worse than secular violence, and more prone to fanaticism, are unconvincing.

Similarly, Cavanaugh also challenges the claims of sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer, who argues that “religion seems to be connected with violence virtually everywhere,” perpetually and across all religious traditions. [46] Juergensmeyer, like Kimball, makes sharp distinctions between religious and secular violence, highlighting what he claims are significant differences. These include, for example, the notion that religious violence is “accompanied by strong claims of moral justification and enduring absolutism” as a result of the intense religious conviction of those carrying it out. [47] In response, Cavanaugh points out how secular warfare is often “couched in the strongest rhetoric of moral justification and historical duty,” citing, for example, Operation Infinite Justice, the US military’s initial name for the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan. [48] In another example, Juergensmeyer argues that secular conflicts are briefer, concluding within the lifetimes of the combatants, whereas religious conflicts can last for hundreds of years. [49] Cavanaugh objects by noting that, “Juergensmeyer himself says that US leaders have given every indication that the ‘war against terror’ will stretch indefinitely into the future” and that this war “seems so absolute and unyielding on both sides.” [50] To this one might also cite the examples of the so-called Hundred Years’ War, lasting from 1337 to 1453, as well as the Second Hundred Years’ War, lasting from 1689 to 1815, both of which have traditionally been interpreted, and rightly so, as secular conflicts rather than religious ones.

Cavanaugh does not confine himself to refuting only Kimball’s and Juergensmeyer’s arguments. He critiques the positions of several other scholars who have made similar claims about religion, emphasizing their presumed inability to define religious wars or violence in a way that cannot also be applied to secular institutions or ideologies. He further argues that modern distinctions between religious violence and other types of violence “are part of a broader Enlightenment narrative that has invented a dichotomy between the religious and the secular. . .” that frames religious violence as “irrational and dangerous” in comparison to various forms of secular violence. [51] He then rejects the notion, convincingly, I think, that religious ideologies are inherently “more inclined toward violence” than secular ideologies or institutions, arguing that distinctions between the two have not been properly established by the scholars who make such claims. [52]

Secular Ideologies as a Type of Religion?

Another problem is that people often define religion and its essential qualities quite differently. Some scholars even debate whether or not nationalism, Marxism, liberalism, or intersectionality are essentially religious in nature as a result of varying demands for philosophical and political “orthodoxy” from adherents to the worldviews promoted by these ideologies. Yet the definition of religion provided earlier in this essay, based on the earliest meanings of the term, centered on belief in, respect for, and devotion to a transcendental Other, obviously excludes secular ideologies from qualifying as “religions.” Moreover, modern adherents of the major faiths, which include Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, among others, who embrace the Divine as a mover of historical events and the afterlife, in some form, as a reality, would see such secular ideologies, devoid of any emphasis on the sacred or the Divine, as something very different from how they define religion.

Similarly, Marxist governments, as well, have generally embraced atheism and typically rejected any associations of their beliefs with religion. Karl Marx himself disparaged “religion” as the “opium of the people,” serving only as a palliative that those in power offered to mask the suffering of the proletariat and, thereby, harmfully preventing the oppressed from perceiving the oppression that was the cause of their pain. [53] Marx did not see his conclusions, which he based on his study of history, economics, and government, as a faith or “religion.” To his mind, his insight was scientific truth, not empty belief, and he understood it to be a rational and true alternative to the irrational illusion of religion.

Consequently, while some may classify certain secular ideologies as essentially religious, when claiming that religion is the cause of more wars than anything else critics like Harris or Dawkins certainly do not. They are not, after all, referring to secular atheists or agnostics (like themselves), progressives, or Marxists, as the cause of most wars or violence, but rather those who are inspired to acts of war because of their belief in the Divine.

Secular Ideologies and Violence

As noted at the beginning of this essay, Kimball argues that “more people” have been killed in the name of religion “than by any other institutional force in human history.” [54] Yet other ideologies appear to have proven far deadlier (and in a shorter amount of time) than religiously inspired conflict. Consider the comments of Sam Harris, who devotes a portion of his introductory chapter in The End of Faith to the collective horrors and atrocities that have resulted from historic Hindu-Muslim animosity and highlights political efforts to accommodate Hindu-Muslim religious divisions through the establishment of the modern nations of Pakistan and India. Harris then asks, “When will we realize that the concessions we have made to faith in our political discourse have prevented us from even speaking about, much less uprooting, the most prolific source of violence in our history?” [55]

Concerning Harris’s suggestion that “concessions” in our “political discourse” to religious faith have been the main obstacle to reducing violence from its “most prolific” source (religious faith), it is worth noting that there has, indeed, been a political discourse that not only refused to make concessions to religious faith, particularly Christianity, but also outright attacked it—communism. [56] Indeed, the communist government of the Soviet Union initially attacked Christianity as a source of all evils, destroying churches and persecuting clergy during the 1920s, as it sought to uproot , to borrow Harris’s term, Christianity from Soviet society. Yet this did not stop violence in the Soviet Union or hinder the extensive Soviet promotion of revolutionary conflicts around the world. To the contrary, the twentieth century is grimly notable for the deaths of, so it has been estimated, nearly one hundred million people by communist governments. [57] Some estimates run even higher. R. J. Rummel, for example, studied governments responsible for mass killings of their own citizens, a phenomenon he called “democide.” [58] He attributed far higher numbers of deaths to the reigns of Mao or Stalin than did Pinker or White: seventy-three million to Mao (vs. forty), and thirty-eight million to Stalin (vs. twenty). [59] Similarly, in White’s statistical breakdown, by cause, of the deaths attributed to the one hundred greatest historic atrocities, multiple categories rank higher than religion. Of White’s estimated 455 million collective victims of these atrocities, he calculates that about 47 million were due to religion, or only around 10 percent of the total. [60] In contrast, White estimates that communist ideology is responsible for 67 million deaths, or nearly 15 percent of the total. [61]

As I have tried to make clear throughout this essay, none of what I have written here is meant to imply that religions are always, or even typically, peaceful, or that members of various religious faiths cannot exhibit the same degree of violence as those otherwise motivated. Religious peoples are often willing to engage in warfare. To the contrary, my argument is that claims that religious wars are more violent and greater in number than other types have no empirical evidence to support them. Such arguments are wholly anecdotal, which almost certainly explains why professional historians have not embraced them. Available quantitative analyses of history’s wars in this regard, as flawed as they are, point in a different direction: that religious conflicts are but a relatively modest percentage of the total and that other causes or ideological motivations have inspired as much or more conflict than religion. Thus, until new data are collected that demonstrate otherwise, the claim that religion is the greatest cause of war is an unsubstantiated myth.

[1] Richard Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs (New York: Harper, 2002), 1.

[2] George Carlin, “Kill for God,” YouTube, accessed January 16, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEi3Gaptaas .

[3] Bethany Saltman, “The Temple of Reason: Sam Harris on How Religion Puts the World at Risk,” The Sun , September 2006.

[4] Richard Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hopes, Lies, Science, and Love (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 158.

[5] Richard M. Nixon, Real Peace: A Strategy for the West (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 14.

[6] George Washington to Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792,” National Archives Founders Online, accessed January 16, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-10-02-0324 .

[7] Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part the Second: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (London: R. Carlisle, 1818), 82.

[8] See Richard S. Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars: 1559–1689 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), ix; and Philippe Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror: Christianity, Violence, and the West (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 29–36.

[9] Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil , 4.

[10] Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil , 4.

[11] Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 27.

[12] Cicero, De Natura Deorum Academia , trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), XLII.112–13. On religio , see Clifford Ando, The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 1–6; William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 60–69.

[13] Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence ,63; Ando, Matter of the Gods ,4–5.

[14] Alfred J. Andrea and Andrew Holt, Sanctified Violence: Holy War in World History (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2021), 1.

[15] Carl von Clausewitz, On War , ed. and trans. M. Howard and P. Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), I.1.24–27: “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means”; “a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means”; and, consequently, “all wars can be considered acts of policy.”

[16] Encyclopedia of Wars ,ed. C. Phillips and A. Axelrod, 3 vols.(New York: Facts on File, 2005), III:1484–85. Commentators citing the Encyclopedia of Wars in this manner include the Huffington Post , Christian apologetics groups, such as the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM), and the libertarian political/social commentator Theodore Beale, more commonly known as Vox Day. See Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (Dallas: Benbella, 2008), 103–6; Robin Schumacher, “The Myth That Religion Is the 1# Cause of War,” CARM: Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, accessed March 13, 2019, https://carm.org/religion-cause-war ; and Alan Lurie, “Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?” Huffington Post , April 10, 2012.

[17] Encyclopedia of Wars ,I:xxii–xxiii.

[18] In their entry titled “Charlemagne’s War against the Saxons,” e.g., Phillips and Axelrod refer to the effort to convert the Saxons to Christianity as one of Charlemagne’s “major” objectives and describe his success. See Encyclopedia of Wars , I:307–8.

[19] The common figure ascribed by various sources to the Encyclopedia of Wars is slightly different, usually listing 123 religious wars. See, e.g., Bruce Sheiman, An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity Is Better Off with Religion Than without It (New York: Alpha, 2009), 117.

[20] Phillips and Axelrod’s list, reordered chronologically here, includes the following: First, Second, Third, and Fourth Sacred Wars (spanning 595 to 336 BCE); Roman-Persian Wars (421–22 and 441); Visigothic-Frankish War; Mecca-Medina War; Byzantine-Muslim Wars (633–42, 645–56, 668–79, 698–718, 739, 741–52, 778–83, 797–98, 803–9, 830–41, 851–63, 871–85, 960–76, and 995–99); Arab conquest of Carthage; revolt in Ravenna; First and Second Iconoclastic Wars, Charlemagne’s invasion of Northern Spain; revolt of Muqanna; Charlemagne’s War against the Saxons; Khurramites’ revolt; Paulician War; Spanish Christian-Muslim Wars (912–28, 977–97, 1001–31, 1172–1212, 1230–48, and 1481–92); German Civil War (1077–1106); Castilian conquest of Toledo; Almohad conquest of Muslim Spain; Spanish conquests in North Africa (1090–91); First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Crusades (spanning 1095–1272); Crusader-Turkish Wars (spanning 1100–1146 and 1272–91); Aragonese-Castilian War; Wars of the Lombard League; Saladin’s Holy War; Aragonese-French War (1209–13); Albigensian Crusade; Danish-Estonian War; Luccan-Florentine War; Crusade of Nicopolis; Portuguese-Moroccan Wars (1458–71 and 1578); War of the Monks; Bohemian Civil War (1465–71); Bohemian-Hungarian War (1468–78); Siege of Granada; Persian Civil War (1500–1503); Vijayanagar Wars; Anglo-Scottish War; Turko-Persian Wars (1514–17 and 1743–47); Counts’ War; Schmalkaldic War; Scottish uprising against Mary of Guise; First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Wars of Religion (spanning 1562 to 1598); Javanese invasion of Malacca; Bohemian-Palatine War; Thirty Years’ War; First, Second, and Third Bernese Revolts (spanning 1621 to 1629); Swedish War; Shimabara Revolt (1637–38); First and Second Bishops Wars; Maryland’s Religious War; Transylvania-Hapsburg War; Portuguese-Omani Wars in East Africa; First Villmergen War; Covenanters’ Rebellions (1666, 1679, and 1685); Rajput Rebellion against Aurangzeb; Camisard Rebellion; Second Villmergen War; Brabant Revolution; Vellore Mutiny; Great Java War; Padri War; Irish Tithe War; War of the Sonderbund; Crimean War; Tukulor-French Wars; Mountain Meadows Massacre; Serbo-Turkish War; Russo-Turkish War (1877–78); Ugandan Religious Wars; Ghost Dance War; Holy Wars of the “Mad Mullah”; raids of the Black Hundreds; Mexican insurrections; Indian Civil War; Bosnian War; and US War on Terrorism.

[21] Encyclopedia of Wars , III.1447–48.

[22] The two wars listed in both the “colonial wars” and “religious wars” categories by Phillips and Axelrod are the Tukulor-French Wars and the Vellore Mutiny, nineteenth-century conflicts involving a complex mix of potential religious and colonial/territorial causes that may have proven too difficult for the authors to categorize under one primary cause. See Encyclopedia of Wars , III.1158–59 and 1243.

[23] Matthew White, The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012).

[24] Jennifer Schuessler, “Ranking History’s Atrocities by Counting the Corpses,” New York Times , November 8, 2011.

[25] Schuessler, “Ranking History’s Atrocities.”

[26] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , xiii.

[27] Schuessler, “Ranking History’s Atrocities.” For White’s figures, see “Death Tolls across History,” Necrometrics, accessed March 15, 2019, https://necrometrics.com/ .

[28] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 544.

[29] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 544–45.

[30] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 544 and 107–8.

[31] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 107.

[32] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 107–8.

[33] Presumably, only the crusades that took place in the East.

[34] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 544.

[35] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 548. One could argue that Mesoamerican human sacrifice is more correct, as even societies like the Maya appear to have performed it, even if apparently on a lesser scale. The scale of Aztec human sacrifice—from only 150 sacrificial victims to 250,000 per year—is a debate; see Matthew Restall’s book When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (New York: Ecco, 2018), 85–95.

[36] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 543–44.

[37] Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin, 2011), 195. His categorizations are often problematic, as reflected in his consideration of the “Fall of Rome” as an “atrocity.”

[38] Pinker draws his figure of 36,000,000 for the An Lushan Rebellion from White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 93. White notes, “The census taken in China in the year 754 recorded a population of 52,880,488. After ten years of civil war, the census of 764 found only 16,900,000 people in China. What happened to 36 million people? Is a loss of two-thirds in one decade even possible? Perhaps. Peasants often lived at the very edge of starvation, so the slightest disruption could cause a massive die off, particularly if they depended on large irrigation systems. . . . [Moreover] many authorities quote these numbers with a minimum of doubt.”

[39] Pinker, Better Angels , 195.

[40] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 4.

[41] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 15–56. In addition to Kimball, he considers the academic arguments of John Hick, Richard Wentz, Martin Marty, Mark Juergensmeyer, David C. Rapoport, Bhikhu Parekh, R. Scott Appleby, and Charles Selengut.

[42] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 8.

[43] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 21–24.

[44] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 23.

[45] Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence , 24.

[46] Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence , 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), xi.

[47] Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God , 220.

[48] Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence ,32.

[49] Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God , 158.

[50] Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence ,32.

[51] Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence , 4.

[52] Cavanaugh, Myth of Religious Violence , 5.

[53] Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right , ” trans. A. Jolin and J. O’Malley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 131.

[54] Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil ,1.

[55] Harris, The End of Faith , 26–27.

[56] Special thanks to Professor Florin Curta of the University of Florida for drawing my attention to this point in a private conversation.

[57] Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression , trans. J. Murphy and M. Kramer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 4.

[58] R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994), 36–38.

[59] Rummel revised his figures in 2005; see Andrew Holt, “The 20th Century’s Bloodiest ‘Megamurderers’ According to Prof. R. J. Rummel,” apholt.com, accessed January 16, 2019, https://apholt.com/2018/11/15/the-20th-centurys-bloodiest-megamurderers-according-to-prof-r-j-rummel/ .

[60] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 554; in a footnote, he offers, “A friend once wondered aloud how much suffering in history has been caused by religious fanaticism, and I was able to confidently tell her 10 percent, based on this number.”

[61] White, Great Big Book of Horrible Things , 554.

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Article contents

Culture, religion, war, and peace.

• Yehonatan Abramson Yehonatan Abramson Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.44
• Published in print: 14 December 2013
• Published online: 30 November 2017

Religion and culture have historically been neglected in international relations (IR) theories and in political science more generally. It was only recently that IR began to consider the role of culture and religion in war and peace. Several main scholarly trends in the study of culture, religion, conflict, and peace can be identified, starting with the definitional problems that IR scholars had to deal with as they tried to incorporate culture and religion. The first major attempt in the IR field to understand war almost exclusively through the religious prism was that of Samuel Huntington, who in his Clash of Civilization (1993, 1996) identifies two main reasons why religion can cause war: first, religion can be considered as a primordial and immutable identity; and second, religion is a form of ideology rather than identity. The scholarly literature has also addressed themes such as religious fundamentalism and violence, the role of religious actors in international conflict, the practical use of religion and culture to promote peace via diplomacy, and engagement of religion and culture in existing peace theories such as democratic peace theory. Avenues for future research may include the relational and constantly changing aspects of religion; what, when, and how various religious interpretations receive political prominence in promoting conflict or peace; how religion can be used as an independent variable across cases; and the hidden set of assumptions that are embedded in the cultural and religion labels.

• international relations
• Samuel Huntington
• religious fundamentalism
• democratic peace theory

Introduction

Historically, international relations (IR) theories neglected ideational factors such as identity, religion, and culture. Although culture was a part of political science since Almond and Verba's seminal book in 1963 , IR's dominant schools of thought (Realism and Liberalism) overemphasized material, structural, and “objective” factors in explaining states’ behavior. Religion was ignored altogether not only in IR, but also in political science in general (Wald and Wilcox 2006 ; Bellin 2008 ). In recent years, IR began to consider the role of culture and religion. Culture as a variable appeared during the end of the Cold War together with the “constructivist turn” (Lapid and Kratochwil 1996 ; Checkel 1998 ; Finnemore and Sikkink 2001 ). Religion entered the field a decade later alongside a scholarly focus on ethnic and religious conflicts and religious-inspired terrorism (Fox 2001 :53; Philpott 2009 :184; Snyder 2011 :1).

This essay reviews the main scholarly trends in the study of culture and religion as sources for conflict and resources for peace. After a brief survey of the early works of political theorists regarding religion and war, this essay turns to review how the topic has been understood within IR. As the essay demonstrates, the attempt to deal with religion and culture as part of identity is a source of much confusion. In order to avoid confusion and reiteration of other comprehensive review essays on culture and IR (such as the essays titled “Culture and Foreign Policy Analysis” and “Nonrealist Variables: Identity and Norms in the Study of International Relations” in this work), this essay gives special focus to the topic of religion in studies of conflict and peace. In IR, religion is usually an independent variable that causes war or peace, or an intervening variable that shapes the probability of a conflict and its violent potential (Hasenclever and Rittberger 2000 :644–8). Some scholars focus on what religion says, while others research what religion does; some scholars deal with religion in the individual level, while others emphasize the societal and organizational aspects of religion (Haynes 1998 ). The next section reviews the ways IR scholars define culture and religion and suggests that religion should be viewed as a part of culture. The following sections discuss the clash of civilizations debate; the relationship between fundamentalism and violence; religion as a cause of war; religion and the intensity of war; culture, religion and diplomacy with some references to cross-cultural negotiation; and culture and the democratic peace with some references to the debate regarding religion and democracy. The essay concludes with suggestions for future directions for research.

Conceptualizing Culture and Religion in IR Scholarship

Despite some exceptions, such as Adda Bozeman ( 1960 ), Jack Snyder ( 1977 ), and to some extent Robert Jervis ( 1976 ), IR scholars did not realize the importance of culture and religion to the understanding of peace and conflict until the post-Cold War era and the introduction of constructivism. The first task facing IR scholars trying to incorporate culture and religion is the task of definition. The understanding that these concepts can be rather distinct, but at the same time intrinsically connected has been a source for much confusion and contention. As this section suggests, different IR scholars treat culture and religion in different ways and sometimes use these concepts interchangeably with other concepts, such as norms, identity, and ethnicity.

The first example for such confusion exists in the writings of IR scholars from the English School, who understand religion as the main component in a society's culture. To Bozeman ( 1960 , 1971 ), for example, culture means civilization, and what dictates the mode of thinking and the normative order in a civilization is religion. Similarly, as Buzan ( 1993 :333) and Thomas ( 2005 :153–4) describe, Martin Wight argues that international societies can be formed on the basis of shared culture, but underlines the role of religion in not only promoting such peaceful unity but also holy wars. This view of religion as the core component of civilization is also shared by non-English School scholars such as Huntington ( 1996 ) and some of the authors in the volume edited by Katzenstein ( 2010 ).

While English School theorists understand culture as part of religion, the constructivist theoretical framework does the opposite. In constructivist studies, culture includes religion as well as other concepts such as identity, norms, or ideas (Lapid and Kratochwil 1996 ; Katzenstein 1996 ; Checkel 1998 ; Desch 1998 ). Cohen ( 1997 :11–12), for example, defines culture as “an acquired unique complex of attributes of a society that is subsuming every area of social life,” and we can find a similar approach in Mary Adams Trujillo et al. ( 2008 ). For others, such as Avruch ( 1998 :17) and Abu-Nimer ( 2001 :687) who draw on Theodore Schwartz's definition, culture is a less homogeneous and static concept and it “consists of the derivatives of experience, more or less organized, learned or created by the individuals of a population, including those images or encodement and their interpretations (meanings) transmitted from past generations, from contemporaries, or formed by individuals themselves.”

Subsuming religion under culture kept the concept under-theorized. It is notable that a canonical constructivist text, Alexander Wendt's Social Theory of International Politics ( 1999 ), does not include “religion” in the index (Snyder 2011 :2). An exception is Kubálková ( 2000 ), who brings religion into the study of IR through rule-oriented constructivism. However, the increasing interest in communal conflicts, such as ethno-national wars, and especially the September 11th attacks, have led to a resurgence of religion in the study of world politics (Fox 2001 :53; Philpott 2009 :184; Snyder 2011 :1).

Religion presents further definitional problems. The definition must encompass numerous but exclude from other phenomena such as ideologies or cults (Philpott 2003 ). Some of the early studies that deal with religion and international conflict, such as Ryan ( 1988 ), Azar ( 1990 ), Gurr ( 1994 ), and Gagnon ( 1994 ), consider religion to be part of a larger concept of ethnicity, or communality. Seul ( 1999 :553) tries to explain “the frequent appearance of religion as the primary cultural marker distinguishing groups in conflict,” and concludes that religion often exists “at the core of individual and group identity” (Seul 1999 :558). For Rothschild ( 1981 :86–7), however, religion is subsumed under the concept of ethnic identity. Correlation of War (COW) data uses both religion and ethnicity in measuring culture (see Henderson 1997 :661). Finally, Anthony Smith traces modern nationalism to religious origins (Smith 1999 ; see also Brubaker 2012 ).

Haynes ( 1998 ) provides a brief discussion about the definition dilemma and draws on Aquaviva while offering two sociological definitions. One sees religion as “a system of beliefs and practices related to an ultimate being, beings of the supernatural,” and the other considers religion to be what is “sacred in a society, that is, ultimate beliefs and practices which are inviolate” (Haynes 1998 : 4). The latter kind of definition is sometime referred to as ‘civil religion’ (Liebman and Don-Yiḥya 1983 ).

Toft ( 2007 :99) lists the common elements in most definitions: “a belief in a supernatural being (or beings); prayers and communication with that being; transcendent realities that might include some form of heaven, paradise, or hell; a distinction between the sacred and the profane and between ritual acts and sacred objects; a view that explains both the world as a whole and a person's proper role in it; a code of conduct in line with that world view; and a community bound by its adherence to these elements.”

On one hand, this discussion provides us some indicators to distinguish between religion and culture: the first belongs to the realm of the sacred and involves a relatively stable doctrine that connects the individual with the transcendental, while the latter belongs to the realm of the profane and involves a malleable combination of practices, customs, and expectations in relation to the society. On the other hand, religion and culture are intrinsically connected by myths, practices, and moral judgments that make religion a part of culture.

War and Peace in the Works of Religious Scholars and Political Theorists

Almost all religious texts have references to war and peace – the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Quran, the Iliad and Odyssey, the Rig Veda, Mahabharata and Ramayana, Arthasastra, and so on. These references offer different treatments of war and peace. Some describe human nature as aggressive or as pursuing peace, some explain war and peace as a result of divine intervention and will, and some define the conditions in which war and peace can be achieved. Some references in sacred texts condition peace on the society's moral behavior. Other texts determine with whom, when, and how a war can be held and a peace treaty can be signed. Most of the sacred texts also have detailed historical narratives of war and peace, from which we can draw conclusions how the religion conceives war and peace. Religious figures and leaders are still creating new interpretations and commentary about peace and war, and this rich genre receives a lot of attention from scholars. In the Western world, books on Judaism and Christianity were written focusing on analyzing peace and war in the Hebrew Bible, in the New Testament, and in sermons, letters, and other external texts and exegeses (Arias 1533 ; Belli 1563 ; Benezet 1776 ; Heaton 1816 ; Dymond 1834 ). In the Muslim world, a similar attempt was made (Shaybani 1335 ; Ibn Khaldun 1377 ; Baladhuri 1866 ). This trend is still relevant in contemporary research today in Christianity (Faunce 1918 ; Barrett 1987 ; Swartley 2006 ), in Buddhism (Kraft 1992 ; Jerryson and Juergensmeyer 2010 ), in Islam (Khadduri 1940 ; Khadduri 1955 ; Kelsay and Johnson 1991 ; Abu-Nimer 2003 ; Mirbagheri 2012 ), in Judaism (Homolka and Friedlander 1994 ; Eisen 2011 ), in Hinduism (Banerjee 1988 ), and in some of them together (Jack 1968 ; Ferguson 1978 ; Smock 1992 ; Gort et al. 2002 ; Nelson-Pallmeyer 2003 ; Nan, Mampilly, and Bartoli 2012 ).

Political philosophy also includes religion in its scholarship. Religion, God, and faith exist in the writings of Hobbes, Machiavelli, Grotius, Rousseau, Locke, Kant, and other early Western political thinkers. All of them considered religion to be an inherent part of life and society that had to be accounted for in political analysis. Some perceived religion as a moral and ethical guideline for individuals and society, and some debated whether religion is an obstacle for government and society or an integral part of it. The relationship between religion and political life remains a vibrant subject of debate to this day (Eisenach 1981 ; Beiner 1993 ; Martinich 2003 ; De Vries 2003 ). Despite the richness of the contributions of religious scholars and of philosophers, these works have not yet offered a scientific theory regarding the role that religion plays in war and peace.

Religion and Conflict: The Clash of Civilization Debate

The first major attempt in the IR field to understand war almost exclusively through the religious prism was that of Samuel Huntington in his well-known article and book Clash of Civilization ( 1993 , 1996 ). Huntington, rejecting Francis Fukuyama's notion of the “End of History,” divides the world into seven or eight major civilizations that are fundamentally different from each other “by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion” (Huntington 1993 :25). Instead of the traditional territorial nation-states, Huntington recognizes a world comprised of various identities that are not necessarily delineated by national boundaries. He argues that the end of the Cold War and the ideological battle between the West and the East will be replaced by a battle of civilizations, which is the broadest category of identification for individuals and is mainly determined by religious beliefs. More specifically, Huntington predicts that the main civilizational conflict will be between the Islamic civilization and the Judeo-Christian Western civilization, due to conflictual history from both sides, a large gap in values, the rise of Islamic extremists and fundamentalism, and a clash of identities as a result of Muslim immigration.

In sum, Huntington's view clarifies two main reasons why religion can cause war. First, religion can be considered as a primordial and immutable identity. The Manichean perception of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ that religion provides is a main source of conflict (Dark 2000 :4–5, 11). Second, globalization, which folds within it rapid economic development and an increase in interactions between individual groups, creates a clash between traditional customs and Western modernity (Fox 1997 :3; Thomas 2000 :5). The desire of other civilizations to maintain their core values and traditions, and to prevent the domination of Western culture lead Huntington to claim that civilizational differences will be the main source of future wars (Huntington 1993 :29–31, 40).

Huntington's thesis received a lot of interest in scholarly and political discourse, and his thesis was tested and criticized from many angles. Ajami ( 1993 ), Bartley ( 1993 ), and Weeks ( 1993 ), for example, argue that states are still the main actors in the international system and that the English-Western secular modern force is more powerful than Huntington thinks. Kirkpatrick ( 1993 ) claims that intra-civilizational conflicts are more common than inter-civilizational conflicts. Others, such as Tipson ( 1997 ), Pfaff ( 1997 ), and Said ( 2001 ), criticize Huntington's facts and methodology (for more comprehensive reviews of the clash of civilization debate see O'Hagan 1995 ; Fox and Sandler 2004 ; Fox 2005 ). Katzenstein ( 2010 ) rejects Huntington's conception of civilizations as homogeneous in favor of a pluralistic view recognizing internal diversity. Katzenstein ( 2010 ) further questions the Huntingtonian “clash” with the evident capacity for inter-and trans-civilizational encounters.

Scholars have also made quantitative attempts to test Huntington's theory. Russett, Oneal, and Cox ( 2000 ) examine inter-state wars between 1950 and 1992 and conclude that realist and liberal variables provide better explanations of these conflicts than civilizational factors. Henderson and Tucker ( 2001 ) examine international wars between 1816 and 1992 and find no connection between civilization membership and international wars. In addition, Henderson and Tucker find that conflicts within civilizations are more likely than conflicts between civilizations. More recent attempts also do not find support for the clash of civilization thesis (Chiozza 2002 ; Ben-Yehuda 2003 ; Bolks and Stoll 2003 ; Fox 2004 ; Henderson 2005 ). However, Henderson's ( 1997 :663) findings suggest that “the greater the religious dissimilarity between states, the greater the likelihood of war.” Similarly, Roeder ( 2003 ) examines ethnopolitical conflicts and finds support for Huntington's thesis. Fox, James, and Li ( 2009 ) bring a different angle to the clash of civilizations debate in examining international interventions on behalf of the same ethno-religious group in another state. Although they focus only on conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, their findings show that Muslim states are more likely to intervene on behalf of other Muslim minorities. Moreover, ethnic conflicts with a religious dimension seem more likely to attract intervention than other ethnic conflicts.

Another view of religion as a cause of war sees religion as a form of ideology rather than identity. In this kind of approach, the emphasis is not on how clashing religious identities create conflict, but rather how religious ideas shape worldviews that justify or are consistent with conflict (see also Desch 1998 ). According to Beker ( 2008 ), for example, the Jewish notion of the “chosen people” has fueled many ideological conflicts between Jews and non-Jews. He further demonstrates how the battle over “chosenness” is evident in modern anti-Semitic discourse. Khadduri ( 1955 ) makes an analogous point with the concepts of dar al-harb (territory of war) and dar al-Islam (territory of Islam) in Islamic laws of war. Similarly, in examining Chinese thought and culture and their influence on Ming strategy towards the Mongols, Johnston ( 1995 :xi) finds that the non-militant ideas usually associated with Confucianism may be “inaccurate, misleading, or plainly wrong.” Juergensmeyer ( 2003 ) focuses on ideas that affect “cultures of violence.” Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others, Juergensmeyer claims, share a worldview of cosmic war between darkness and light (Juergensmeyer 2003 :13, 35). Because religious ideology is a defined non-negotiable set of rules, resolving a religious dispute peacefully is harder than with other disputes (Dark 2000 :1–2).

Religious Fundamentalism and Violence

The relationship between religious worldviews and war leads us to religious fundamentalism and violence. Of special note is the five-volume work by Marty and Appleby ( 1991 –5) that encompasses different approaches and case studies related to fundamentalism. Marty and Appleby ( 1992 :34) define fundamentalism as “a distinctive tendency – a habit of mind and a pattern of behavior – found within modern religious communities and embodied in certain representative individuals and movements … a religious way of being that manifests itself as a strategy by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive identity as a people or group.” They recount the ideological extremism in social, political, and structural conditions, such as social deprivation, repressive regimes, reaction to secularization, and economic crises. Marty and Appleby argue that religious ideas are not the goal for the fundamentalists, but rather they use religion as a means to achieve political ends. Fundamentalists use “old doctrines, subtly lift them from their original context … and employ them as ideological weapons against a hostile world” (Marty and Appleby 1991 :826). Fundamentalism, in this view, is a religious backlash against secular rule (see also Tibi 1999 ). Juergensmeyer ( 1993 ) shares this view but opposes labeling this religious fervor as fundamentalism due to the accusatory and ambiguous meanings of the term.

Eisenstadt ( 1999 ) agrees with Marty and Appleby that “contemporary” fundamentalist movements are thoroughly modern movements, but disagrees with the link they draw between religious force and fundamentalism. For Eisenstadt, contemporary fundamentalist movements rest on the same universal, utopian, totalistic, and secular claims of modernity that the Jacobins and the communist revolutions were based upon but “promulgate anti-modern or anti-Enlightenment ideologies” (Eisenstadt 1999 :1). The direction which a fundamentalist movement takes depends on its civilization, the political and social circumstances surrounding the movement, and the international setting (Eisenstadt 1999 ). Reviews of religious fundamentalism and violence include Gill ( 2001 ) and Ozzano ( 2009 ).

Religious Actors and International Conflict

Scholarship has gone beyond the clash of civilizations debate and the study of fundamentalism to explore further questions about how and under what conditions religion leads to war. One approach has been to consider individual values and mindsets in the lists of factors that affect decision making by leaders, including decisions about war. Brecher ( 1972 ), Jervis ( 1976 ), and Fisher ( 1997 ) focus on culture, while Fox ( 2001 ), Sandal and James ( 2010 ), and Warner and Walker ( 2011 ) focus specifically on religion. On the collective level, society's core values, conceptions, and assumptions about the world and the enemy can influence foreign policy outcomes (Booth 1979 ; Hudson and Vore 1995 ; Reeves 2004 ). Religious beliefs should not be dismissed as irrational or marginal, but should be included in the strategic calculations of leaders and states (Toft 2007 :129).

Religious affinities on the collective level are not confined to traditional territorial state boundaries. Transnational religious actors are another good example of the role of religion in conflict. Religious terrorist groups that have cells in different countries can initiate a conflict between states, and global riots can result from injury to religious sentiment, as in the Danish caricature case (Dark 2000 :5–10; Fox 2001 :67–9; Haynes 2001 ). These kinds of conflicts can be international, when religious diaspora is engaged in the conflict, or remain domestic (civil wars). Fox and Sandler show how local wars can capture the interest of members of transnational religious groups due to the possible involvement of holy sites (Fox and Sandler 2004 :63–82). Even without direct participation in violence, religious transnational movements and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participate in global conflict by lobbying or protesting in order to encourage a state to intervene in a distant war between ethno-religious minorities (Fox, James and Li 2009 ).

Religion may also have an indirect effect on war since it can be used as a tool to mobilize people and to enhance legitimacy (Fox 2001 :65–7; Haynes 2004 :456; Snyder 2011 :11). This does not necessarily mean that political leaders actually hold religious beliefs but that such beliefs serve them in accomplishing their political interests. This view holds that the recent global resurgence of religion in various societies occurs as a result of instrumental use of religion by political elites (Fox 1997 :4; Hasenclever and Rittberger 2000 :643–6).

The question of whether religion is the cause of a conflict, or just a tool or a dimension of it was addressed in several quantitative studies. Gurr ( 1993 ) uses the Minorities at Risk data to examine mobilization and collective action in “communal conflicts.” His findings indicate that an essential basis for mobilization is a sense of group identity. Gurr measures group identity by using six indicators including religion, ethnicity, and social customs. Fox ( 1997 , 2002 ) tries to isolate conflicts between groups from different religions. Using the same data as Gurr, Fox concludes that in such cases “religious issues play, at most, a marginal role” (Fox 1997 :16). Henderson, however, using Correlates of War data, concludes that “cultural difference, especially in the case of religion, is positively associated with war” (Henderson 1997 :666). Durward and Marsden ( 2009 ) offer a more nuanced and developed understanding of how religious beliefs, discourses, and practices are politicized and used to trigger conflicts, justify military interventions, and facilitate resolutions.

Religion and the Intensity of War

Another trend in the study of religion and war asks whether religious conflicts are more violent than other conflicts and if some religions are more prone to use more violence than others. Fox and Sandler ( 2004 ), using Minorities at Risk data, conclude that “religious conflicts … are consistently more violent than nonreligious conflicts.” A study by Pearce ( 2005 ) using a different data set supports this conclusion.

As for the relationship between a specific religion and violence, Pearce's ( 2005 :349) results show that Judaism and Hinduism are more violence prone, but this may be due to a small number of cases. Fox and Sandler's ( 2004 :132) results demonstrate “conflicts involving Islamic groups are more violent than conflicts not involving Islamic groups,” and conflicts within the Islamic civilization “are slightly more violent” than conflicts between civilizations. Due to the fact that there are many Muslim states, but only one Jewish state and one Hindu state that are each experiencing protracted conflict, it is still unclear whether specific religions are more violent than others, or whether it is a false image created by the uneven numbers of religious groups. The finding that Islamists were involved in 81 percent of the religious civil wars between 1940 and 2000 led Toft ( 2007 ) to eventually conclude that “overlapping historical, geographical, and, in particular, structural factors account for Islam's higher representation in religious civil wars.” More importantly, her theory suggests that religious aspects are an instrument by political elites for gaining more legitimacy in order to survive, or to achieve another objective (Toft 2007 :97–8, 128).

The degree of religious violence does not have to be related to a specific religion, but rather to the type of regime or degree of state power. Thomas ( 2000 :14–15) suggests that the appeal for religious ideas grows larger especially in weak states. Fox ( 1997 ) shows an increase in religious discrimination and grievance in autocratic states compared with democratic regimes. When a transition to democracy happens, the chances of such communal violence rise due to the diminishing power of the regime and an ease of autocratic repression (Gurr 1994 ).

Culture, Religion, and Diplomacy

Scholars have also been interested in the practical use of religion and culture to promote peace. Discussing culture specifically, Kevin Avruch ( 1998 ) suggests that culture is a significant variable in conflict resolution as each negotiator comes with his or her own subculture (class, region, ethnicity, and more). In contrast, Zartman ( 1993 :17) gives culture little substantive significance and argues that it is as relevant as the breakfast the negotiators ate. Fisher ( 1980 ) and Cohen ( 1997 ) occupy the middle ground suggesting that culture matters together with other variables. For a good introductory review regarding these approaches, see Ramsbotham, Miall, and Woodhouse ( 2011 ).

Cultural gaps may involve language barriers, create problems of interpretation, and disrupt the transfer of information (Gulliver 1979 ; Fisher 1980 ; Faure and Rubin 1993 ; Cohen 1997 ; Berton et al. 1999 ). The dichotomy, made by Hall ( 1976 ) between high-context cultures and low-context cultures, is useful in explaining these cultural obstacles in international negotiation. High-context cultures are generally associated with collective societies in which communication is less verbal and more indirect, emphasizing the context in which things are said and done. High-context cultures require communicators to pay attention to nuances and body language. Consequently, those from such cultures are more sensitive socially, they try to please their audience, and they see great importance in small talk and group consensus. Low-context cultures, on the other hand, are individualistic in character, and communication is direct and with a clear message. Accuracy in the written or spoken word is very important in low-context culture, and less attention is paid to context, body language, and facial expressions (Cohen 1997 ; Rubinstein 2003 ). When two societies from the two different types of culture meet around the negotiation table, potential pitfalls are evident. This line of research has specific practical implications. The US Institute of Peace published a series of works analyzing different negotiating styles and behaviors to equip negotiators with a better understanding of cultural differences. Examples include Wittes ( 2005 ), Solomon and Quinney ( 2010 ), and Schaffer and Schaffer ( 2011 ).

As for structure and the process of negotiation, culture can play an important role in the degree of trust between the sides, which can define negotiation strategy and whether there is a need for mediation. These factors can also influence the size of the delegations, the different roles within the delegation, the degree of unity within the delegation, negotiating procedures, seating arrangements, and public announcements (Berton et al. 1999 :3–5).

This vast literature regarding culture and diplomacy has little to say about religion. As former United States Secretary of State and international relations scholar Madeleine Albright confesses, diplomacy, conflict resolution, negotiation, and peace were all conceptualized in secular terms with no room for religion and faith prior to the terror attacks of September 11th (Albright 2006 :8–9). Indeed, most of the IR studies on culture and diplomatic practices to promote peace were written during the 1980s and 1990s. Only after September 11th did religion and faith become a primary topic.

Many scholars agree that the same power that religion has in inciting conflicts can also be used to promote peace (Gopin 1997 ; Appleby 2000 ; Broadhead and Keown 2007 ). Some works continue the trajectory of previous studies on cross-cultural negotiation and focus on a specific religion. In the case of Islam, Alon ( 2000 ), Alon and Brett ( 2007 ), and Pely ( 2010 ) focus on Muslim perceptions of conflict resolution, values of honor, and the institutional mechanism of sulha (reconciliation). Other studies consider how peace can be achieved with an emphasis on shared religious values, such as empathy, forgiveness, mercy, compassion and the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Gopin 1997 ; Gopin 2001 ; Cilliers 2002 ; Carter and Smith 2004 ). Similarly, Albright ( 2006 :73) mentions the religious notion that “we are all created in the image of God” as a common ground. Shore ( 2009 :2) shows how “Christianity played a central role in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” and how values of forgiveness and justice were important in South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy. Similarly, Gopin ( 2002 ) argues that in the Israeli-Palestinian case, the marginalization of religious aspects was crucial in the failure of the Oslo agreement. He adds that by putting religion in the middle of the reconciliation process, and with dialogues between key religious figures from both sides, peace in the Middle East can be achieved.

While traditional realpolitik diplomacy has had difficulties coping with religion-inspired conflicts, non-state actors, such as religious leaders and members of religious NGOs, had more success in promoting peace in different forms – whether peacemaking, peacebuilding, peace enforcing, or peace keeping (Little 2006 :102). Cynthia Sampson ( 1997 ) overviews the various roles and methodologies used by religious-motivated institutional actors in the process of peacebuilding. She provides manifold examples of conflict intervention by religious institutional actors that advocate (such as during the Rhodesian war of independence), intermediate (such as in the 1972 Sudanese peace process), observe (such as during the 1991 Zambian elections), and educate (such as in Northern Ireland). Appleby ( 2000 ) offers a similar approach focusing on religious actors and their roles.

The vast examples of religious involvement in peacebuilding have led Johnston and Sampson ( 1997 ) and Johnston ( 2003 ) to conceptualize this type of diplomacy as “faith-based diplomacy,” which takes place through track II channels (the informal and unofficial negotiations). In general, the Catholic Church receives more scholarly attention than other religious institutions in mediating disputes. Examples include the 1968–89 internal dispute in Bolivia (Klaiber 1993 ) and the Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile (Garrett 1985 ; Lindsley 1987 ; Laudy 2000 ). Bartoli's analyses of the reconciliation process in Mozambique specify how religion plays a role in conflict resolution. He demonstrates that religion does not replace or transform the political process of negotiation, but rather provides motivation, organizational capacities, legitimacy, and flexibility (Bartoli 2001 , 2005 ; see also Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011 ).

The volume edited by David Little ( 2007 ) offers a different perspective that focuses on individual religious figures, rather than institutions, as peacemakers. Examples from El Salvador, Israel/Palestine, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Sudan highlight the grassroots efforts by religious individuals to promote peace. Using religious texts, rituals, and networks these individuals increase global attention, help find common ground, provide moral justification, and facilitate face-to-face communication between the warring sides (see also Smock 2008 ; for more on the topic of diplomacy and religion see “Diplomacy and Religion”).

Recently, there is a growing interest in challenging the secularist assumptions of United States foreign policy. Hurd ( 2008 ), for example, demonstrates that the perceived separation between religious and secular political authorities is a result of a political process and is socially constructed. By identifying two trajectories of secularism – a laicist one and a Judeo-Christian one – she shows how religion and secularism were never apart. Thus, instead of characterizing religion as a threat, diplomats and decision makers should realize that there are various political representations and interpretations of religion and should make more room for non-Western forms of politics (Hurd 2007 ). From a different perspective, Farr ( 2008 ) calls for rejecting the American narrow version of religious freedom that focuses on humanitarian violations in favor of a more tolerant and broader version that builds and encourages different versions of religious freedom in different regimes. Philpott ( 2013 :31) supports Farr's conclusions by highlighting how religious freedom is a “critical enabler of peace.”

Culture, Religion, and the Democratic Peace

Another research theme in IR tries to engage religion and culture in existing peace theories. The main example is democratic peace theory, by which liberal democracies tend not to fight each other. One of the explanations for democratic peace argues that shared cultures, values, and norms favoring compromise and peaceful solutions lead liberal democracies to solve disputes peacefully (Maoz and Russett 1993 ). But the traditional cultural explanation for democratic peace focuses on political culture and not on other elements such as ethnicity, language, and religion. Henderson ( 1998 ) tests the theory with those elements included and concludes that religious similarities within democratic dyads decrease the likelihood of war, while ethnic and lingual similarities increase this likelihood.

The connection between peaceful behavior and regime type led scholars to examine the connection between specific religions and democracy as a way to better understand the conditions for democracy and presumably for peace. After Huntington's theory and the events of September 11th, Western scholars tested Bernard Lewis’ hypothesis that Islamic religion conflicts with democracy (Midlarsky 1998 :486). This topic was researched from different angles. Some argue that Muslim resistance to modernity is an obstacle to democracy (Sivan 1990 ); some argue that lack of sufficient economic development holds back democracy; others claim that the possession of oil and the concept of the ‘rentier state’ hinder democracy (Ross 2001 ; Fish 2002 ); and some claim that the ideas grounded in Islamic thought and religion are incompatible with democracy (Huntington 1984 ; Lewis 1996 ). On the other hand, Esposito and Piscatori ( 1991 ) and Esposito and Voll ( 1996 ) argue that Islam is not necessarily hostile to democracy, and urge us to remember that Islam, like democracy, has a variety of interpretations, meanings, and political practices. Midlarsky ( 1998 ) tries to test the relationship between Islam and democracy using a political rights index (measuring procedural democracy) and an index of liberal democracy (measuring liberal freedoms). He finds that Islam, measured by the percentage of population that is Muslim, has a negative correlation with liberal freedoms but does not necessarily rule out democratic procedure. Recently, Hunter and Malik ( 2005 ) offer an antithesis to this view and demonstrate how military, colonial, international economic, and domestic economic factors prevented the creation of a civil society that is crucial for democracy. Sonn and McDaniel's chapter in the same book demonstrates how modern Islamic thought is quite similar to Western values, including rationality and tolerance.

Future Research

In the study of war and peace, religion long played a marginal role. Both sacred texts and Western canonical philosophical works contain religious references to war and peace, but none of the main theoretical works in IR address religion. Since the end of the Cold War and the growing attention to ethnic conflicts, new interests in culture and religion emerged. Scholars first explored the interplay of culture, war, and peace focusing on decision making, negotiation, national character, and the cultural construction of friends and foes. Then, as a result of the growing attention to ethnic conflict and terrorism, there was a resurgence of interest in religion in IR scholarship. Treated both as a central component of social identity and as an overarching ideology, religious international violence is understood by some scholars as a reaction to global population flows, modernization processes, and secularization.

Religion, as a social phenomenon, is also able to help us understand the growing power of actors outside the traditional boundaries of the state. Transnational actors that share religious beliefs with each other can pursue different, and sometimes contradictory, goals from those of the nation-state. Such actors can ignite conflicts, but can also help in mediating negotiations and promoting peace. Diplomats have learned to use key religious figures in their reconciliation attempts and they try to emphasize common values and diminish differences between religions.

The rediscovery of religion in IR scholarship has produced many studies that try to theorize the role of religion in conflict and peace. Thus far, these studies treat religion either as a political tool used by agents for their own interests or as an essentialist ideological scheme that informs actors’ behavior. Future research may focus on the relational and constantly changing aspects of religion and show what, when, and how various religious interpretations receive political prominence in promoting conflict or peace. Moreover, IR scholarship could use more theorization of how religion can be used as an independent variable across cases. How can one compare the religious passions animating the Crusades, with the religious passions during the Thirty Years War, or with modern fundamentalist terrorism? The definitional problems, mentioned earlier, provide difficulties in that regard.

A new way to look in more depth at religious and cultural elements of international politics is to use them as interpretive tools. Culture can be conceptualized as the “practices of meaning-making,” and thus open an opportunity to investigate the ways in which meanings are created within a society (Wedeen 2002 ). For example, examining political rhetoric can help us understand how meanings become inscribed within a society and how changes in rhetoric can lead to changes in foreign policy (Krebs and Jackson 2007 ; Krebs and Lobasz 2007 ). Another beneficial way to engage the elusive concepts of culture and religion is to trace the hidden set of assumptions that are embedded in the cultural and religion labels. What does “democracy” or “freedom” mean to different cultural or religious groups? What types of behavior are expected from a negotiator who is labeled Muslim or Buddhist and how does it affect the negotiation process? Moreover, how does popular representation of different religions shape these hidden assumptions?

IR literature will probably continue to engage culture and religion in its research, but in order to develop the field and avoid academic stagnation, it is important to enable scientific pluralism that will force us to reconsider how we treat religion and culture. A deeper understanding of different religions and cultures will open our understanding of the different “worlds” within “our world” and will identify the values that drive these worlds.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Renée Marlin-Bennett for her valuable guidance and comments, and Andrew Mark Bennett for his meticulous assistance.

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Links to Digital Materials

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. At http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/ , accessed August 21, 2013 . The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, based at Georgetown University, is an educational and a research center for the study of religion in relation to various international phenomena, such as globalization, human rights, ethnics of war, negotiation, and more. The website also includes data regarding international religious freedom.

The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD). At http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/index.php?en , accessed August 21, 2013 . The ICD is an international NGO whose main goal is to enhance the intercultural relations between peoples and areas in the world. The ICD offers reports and publications researching various aspects of cultural diplomacy – definitions, efforts, implementation, and future directions. The institute combines academic development of the field with practical programs and educational resources.

Minorities at Risk (MAR). At http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/ , accessed August 21, 2013 . The MAR project, located at University of Maryland, collects data regarding active conflict between communal groups. Among other variables, the MAR data measures religious characteristics of the conflicting groups.

Religions and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace Project. At http://relwar.org/ , accessed August 21, 2013 . The project on Religion and Ethnics in the Making of War and Peace, based at the University of Edinburgh, is an academic and practical forum to discuss the relationship between military and religious ethics. The publication section includes several articles on that topic.

Religions for Peace. At http://religionsforpeace.org/ , accessed August 21, 2013 . Religion for Peace was founded in 1970 as a coalition of representatives from the world's major religions dedicated to promote peace. The website offers guides and resources aimed to help religious leaders decrease violence and encourage development and peace.

United States Institute of Peace. At http://www.usip.org/ , accessed August 21, 2013 . Beside various books dealing with negotiation styles of different cultures, the United States Institute of Peace offers panels, initiatives, reports, and other publications dealing both with culture and religion in diplomacy and in war.

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Religion and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Cause, Consequence, and Cure

Mohamed Galal Mostafa is a former Egyptian diplomat, and currently a researcher at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by several factors: ethnic, national, historical, and religious. This brief essay focuses on the religious dimension of the conflict, which both historical and recent events suggest lies at its core. That much is almost a truism. What is less often appreciated, however, is how much religion impacts the identity of actors implicated in this conflict, the practical issues at stake, and the relevant policies and attitudes -- even of non-religious participants on both sides. It follows that religion must also be part of any real solution to this tragic and protracted conflict, in ways a concluding paragraph will very briefly outline.

Why is religion at the core of this conflict?

Several religious factors pertinent to Islam and Judaism dictate the role of religion as the main factor in the conflict, notably including the sanctity of holy sites and the apocalyptic narratives of both religions, which are detrimental to any potential for lasting peace between the two sides. Extreme religious Zionists in Israel increasingly see themselves as guardians and definers of the how the Jewish state should be, and are very stringent when it comes to any concessions to the Arabs. On the other hand, Islamist groups in Palestine and elsewhere in the Islamic world advocate the necessity of liberating the “holy” territories and sites for religious reasons, and preach violence and hatred against Israel and the Jewish people.

Religion-based rumors propagated by extremists in the media and social media about the hidden religious agendas of the other side exacerbate these tensions. Examples include rumors about a “Jewish Plan” to destroy al Aqsa mosque and build the Jewish third temple on its remnants, and, on the other side rumors that Muslims hold the annihilation of Jews at the core of their belief.

In addition, worsening socio-economic conditions in the Arab and Islamic world contribute to the growth of religious radicalism, pushing a larger percentage of youth towards fanaticism, and religion-inspired politics.

The advent of the Arab spring, ironically, also posed a threat to Arab-Israeli peace, as previously stable regimes were often challenged by extreme political views. A prominent example was the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who after succeeding to the presidency in 2012, threatened to compromise the peace agreement with Israel based on their religious ideology – even if they did not immediately tear up the treaty.

Practical Consequences O n Negotiations

If we take a closer look at the permanent status issues – borders, security, mutual recognition, refugees, the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the issue of authority over Jerusalem -- we find that the last two are directly linked to the faiths of Jewish people and Muslim people around the world. The original ownership and authority over Jerusalem are highly contested due to the presence of holy sites for Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the city. This conflict is also deeply rooted in history, in which Jerusalem has been attacked fifty-two times, captured and recaptured forty-four times, besieged twenty-three times, and destroyed twice. The city was ruled by the Ancient Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Israelites, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, Byzantines, the Islamic Caliphates, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, and finally the British, before its division into Israeli and Jordanian sectors from 1948 to 1967.

In Jewish and Biblical history, Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of King David. It is also home to the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall, both highly sanctified sites in Judaism. In Islamic history, the city was the first Muslim Qiblah (the direction which Muslims face during their prayer). It is also the place where Prophet Muhammad’s Isra’ and Mi'raj (bringing forward and ascension to heaven, also called the night journey) ensued according to the Qur’an.

Thus the sanctity of Jerusalem resonates among many Muslims around the world, not just Palestinians. Reactions in the Arab and the Islamic world to the recent violence in Gaza and the West Bank after the U.S. decision to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem suggest that many view this issue mainly in a religious light. The narratives on social media platforms and the media in general in those countries usually included references to religion, even among seemingly secular people.

The issue of West Bank settlements, too, has a religious aspect. It concerns the physical restoration of the biblical land of Israel before the return of the Messiah, something central to the beliefs of some orthodox Jews. They continue to settle the West Bank to fulfill this prophecy, clashing with the local Palestinians.

On the other hand, according to fundamentalist schools of Islam, at the end of days, the whole land of Israel and Palestine should be under Islamic rule. Prophecies surrounding this issue are deeply rooted in some versions of the Hadith (traditional sayings of the Prophet), although only implied in the Qur’an.

Historical and Organizational Consequences

As far back as the 1948 war, some Jewish extremist groups justified their contribution to the conflict as part of a divinely promised return to the holy land of Israel. More recently, however, the most extreme such groups, like the “Gush Emunim Underground” which plotted to bomb the mosques in the Temple Mount area back in the 1980s, have been banned by the Israeli authorities

On the other side, several religious extremist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood justified their contribution to the conflict in 1948 as an eschatological event pertinent to the approach of the Day of Judgment. Nowadays, terrorist Brotherhood offshoots like Hamas call for using violence against Israel in the name of Islam, without distinction between civilian and military targets. They continue to use religion to gain supporters in Gaza and elsewhere by propagating this apocalyptic narrative. This Muslim Brotherhood group ideology, stretching through many Arab (and several non-Arab) countries, seeks to revive Islam and re-establish the historical Islamic Caliphate by seizing power. They consider Israel to be a “foreign object” in the continuum of a potential Islamic Caliphate, and they continue to call for the use of violence against it.

In parallel to this extreme Sunni side, ever since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, Iran has been the fiercest in opposing Israel. Its radical regime calls openly for the destruction of Israel and asserts the necessity of this quest from a theological standpoint. It finances Hezbollah and Hamas and supplies them with weapons and training, as well as supporting Assad’s forces in Syria, thereby posing a direct security threat to Israel – all allegedly in the name of Islam.

Social Consequences

For two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, direct peacemaking was achieved with Israel. Nevertheless, that did not entail the people-to-people or cultural normalization that is assumed to accompany peace, due to many reasons -- including religious ones. Accepting peace with Israel may be viewed as religious treachery, which goes against the beliefs not only of extremists but also of many relative moderates in Arab states. The key point is that these various forms of religion-based conflict drivers are not limited to religious groups, but are linked to much wider bases in society. This results from two major factors, as follows:

Interest and Identity Overlap: Interests of religious extremists who are directly linked to the religious drivers at many instances overlap with other segments in the Arab and Islamic societies. They share some elements of their identities, if not the whole. For example, a secular nationalist Palestinian and an extremely religious, Salafi Palestinian in the Qassam Brigades of Hamas may share very similar views of Israel. Much the same is true of some secularists, traditionalists, and fundamentalists in other Arab or Islamic societies.

Systematic Abuse of Linkages to Wider Bases in Societies: Religious extremists in the Arab and Islamic world and in Israel, whether violent or not, have used deliberately the ideological and functional linkages to connect to wider bases in their respective countries. Ideologically, links with the wider society are established by trying to radicalize elements that have this potential, either due to natural tendencies toward perceived communal self-defense, or to the superficial knowledge of their religions. For example, extremists would use an isolated incident of violence against the Jewish community to justify retaliation by their wider society. A non-religious traditional Arab might well share the fear of secularization, and of “Jewish influence,” with the Islamist.  Functionally, extreme Imams have very strong tools at their disposals across the Arab and Islamic world to promote violence through their mosques and privately funded media, subjecting people repeatedly to the narrative and rhetoric of violence against Israel in particular and Jewish people in general.

Possible Interventions

To contribute to curbing the religious violence in this conflict, several interventions can be considered: interfaith dialogue; the remembrance of past fruitful cooperation between Jews and Muslims, ever since the seventh century; and focusing on religious texts asserting positive and tolerant religious values, and reinforcing these values in educational systems on both sides. These are perhaps not new ideas. What should be new, however, is the urgency and centrality of this religious component as part of any current effort to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian “deal of the century” – or even just to mitigate the conflict and pave the way for peaceful coexistence in the long-term future.

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The myth of religious violence

The popular belief that religion is the cause of the world’s bloodiest conflicts is central to our modern conviction that faith and politics should never mix. But the messy history of their separation suggests it was never so simple

A s we watch the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis) rampaging through the Middle East, tearing apart the modern nation-states of Syria and Iraq created by departing European colonialists, it may be difficult to believe we are living in the 21st century. The sight of throngs of terrified refugees and the savage and indiscriminate violence is all too reminiscent of barbarian tribes sweeping away the Roman empire, or the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan cutting a swath through China, Anatolia, Russia and eastern Europe, devastating entire cities and massacring their inhabitants. Only the wearily familiar pictures of bombs falling yet again on Middle Eastern cities and towns – this time dropped by the United States and a few Arab allies – and the gloomy predictions that this may become another Vietnam, remind us that this is indeed a very modern war.

The ferocious cruelty of these jihadist fighters, quoting the Qur’an as they behead their hapless victims , raises another distinctly modern concern: the connection between religion and violence. The atrocities of Isis would seem to prove that Sam Harris, one of the loudest voices of the “New Atheism”, was right to claim that “most Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith” , and to conclude that “religion itself produces a perverse solidarity that we must find some way to undercut”. Many will agree with Richard Dawkins, who wrote in The God Delusion that “only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people”. Even those who find these statements too extreme may still believe, instinctively, that there is a violent essence inherent in religion, which inevitably radicalises any conflict – because once combatants are convinced that God is on their side, compromise becomes impossible and cruelty knows no bounds.

Despite the valiant attempts by Barack Obama and David Cameron to insist that the lawless violence of Isis has nothing to do with Islam, many will disagree. They may also feel exasperated. In the west, we learned from bitter experience that the fanatical bigotry which religion seems always to unleash can only be contained by the creation of a liberal state that separates politics and religion. Never again, we believed, would these intolerant passions be allowed to intrude on political life. But why, oh why, have Muslims found it impossible to arrive at this logical solution to their current problems ? Why do they cling with perverse obstinacy to the obviously bad idea of theocracy? Why, in short, have they been unable to enter the modern world? The answer must surely lie in their primitive and atavistic religion.

But perhaps we should ask, instead, how it came about that we in the west developed our view of religion as a purely private pursuit, essentially separate from all other human activities, and especially distinct from politics. After all, warfare and violence have always been a feature of political life, and yet we alone drew the conclusion that separating the church from the state was a prerequisite for peace. Secularism has become so natural to us that we assume it emerged organically, as a necessary condition of any society’s progress into modernity. Yet it was in fact a distinct creation, which arose as a result of a peculiar concatenation of historical circumstances; we may be mistaken to assume that it would evolve in the same fashion in every culture in every part of the world.

We now take the secular state so much for granted that it is hard for us to appreciate its novelty, since before the modern period, there were no “secular” institutions and no “secular” states in our sense of the word. Their creation required the development of an entirely different understanding of religion, one that was unique to the modern west. No other culture has had anything remotely like it, and before the 18th century, it would have been incomprehensible even to European Catholics. The words in other languages that we translate as “religion” invariably refer to something vaguer, larger and more inclusive. The Arabic word din signifies an entire way of life, and the Sanskrit dharma covers law, politics, and social institutions as well as piety. The Hebrew Bible has no abstract concept of “religion”; and the Talmudic rabbis would have found it impossible to define faith in a single word or formula, because the Talmud was expressly designed to bring the whole of human life into the ambit of the sacred. The Oxford Classical Dictionary firmly states: “No word in either Greek or Latin corresponds to the English ‘religion’ or ‘religious’.” In fact, the only tradition that satisfies the modern western criterion of religion as a purely private pursuit is Protestant Christianity, which, like our western view of “religion”, was also a creation of the early modern period.

Traditional spirituality did not urge people to retreat from political activity. The prophets of Israel had harsh words for those who assiduously observed the temple rituals but neglected the plight of the poor and oppressed. Jesus’s famous maxim to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” was not a plea for the separation of religion and politics. Nearly all the uprisings against Rome in first-century Palestine were inspired by the conviction that the Land of Israel and its produce belonged to God, so that there was, therefore, precious little to “give back” to Caesar. When Jesus overturned the money-changers’ tables in the temple, he was not demanding a more spiritualised religion. For 500 years, the temple had been an instrument of imperial control and the tribute for Rome was stored there. Hence for Jesus it was a “den of thieves”. The bedrock message of the Qur’an is that it is wrong to build a private fortune but good to share your wealth in order to create a just, egalitarian and decent society. Gandhi would have agreed that these were matters of sacred import: “Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”

Before the modern period, religion was not a separate activity, hermetically sealed off from all others; rather, it permeated all human undertakings, including economics, state-building, politics and warfare. Before 1700, it would have been impossible for people to say where, for example, “politics” ended and “religion” began. The Crusades were certainly inspired by religious passion but they were also deeply political: Pope Urban II let the knights of Christendom loose on the Muslim world to extend the power of the church eastwards and create a papal monarchy that would control Christian Europe. The Spanish inquisition was a deeply flawed attempt to secure the internal order of Spain after a divisive civil war, at a time when the nation feared an imminent attack by the Ottoman empire. Similarly, the European wars of religion and the thirty years war were certainly exacerbated by the sectarian quarrels of Protestants and Catholics, but their violence reflected the birth pangs of the modern nation-state.

It was these European wars, in the 16th and 17th centuries, that helped create what has been called “the myth of religious violence”. It was said that Protestants and Catholics were so inflamed by the theological passions of the Reformation that they butchered one another in senseless battles that killed 35% of the population of central Europe. Yet while there is no doubt that the participants certainly experienced these wars as a life-and-death religious struggle, this was also a conflict between two sets of state-builders: the princes of Germany and the other kings of Europe were battling against the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and his ambition to establish a trans-European hegemony modelled after the Ottoman empire.

If the wars of religion had been solely motivated by sectarian bigotry, we should not expect to have found Protestants and Catholics fighting on the same side, yet in fact they often did so. Thus Catholic France repeatedly fought the Catholic Habsburgs, who were regularly supported by some of the Protestant princes. In the French wars of religion (1562–98) and the thirty years war, combatants crossed confessional lines so often that it was impossible to talk about solidly “Catholic” or “Protestant” populations. These wars were neither “all about religion” nor “all about politics”. Nor was it a question of the state simply “using” religion for political ends. There was as yet no coherent way to divide religious causes from social causes. People were fighting for different visions of society, but they would not, and could not, have distinguished between religious and temporal factors in these conflicts. Until the 18th century, dissociating the two would have been like trying to take the gin out of a cocktail.

By the end of the thirty years war, Europeans had fought off the danger of imperial rule. Henceforth Europe would be divided into smaller states, each claiming sovereign power in its own territory, each supported by a professional army and governed by a prince who aspired to absolute rule – a recipe, perhaps, for chronic interstate warfare. New configurations of political power were beginning to force the church into a subordinate role, a process that involved a fundamental reallocation of authority and resources from the ecclesiastical establishment to the monarch. When the new word “secularisation” was coined in the late 16th century, it originally referred to “the transfer of goods from the possession of the church into that of the world”. This was a wholly new experiment. It was not a question of the west discovering a natural law; rather, secularisation was a contingent development. It took root in Europe in large part because it mirrored the new structures of power that were pushing the churches out of government.

These developments required a new understanding of religion. It was provided by Martin Luther, who was the first European to propose the separation of church and state. Medieval Catholicism had been an essentially communal faith; most people experienced the sacred by living in community. But for Luther, the Christian stood alone before his God, relying only upon his Bible. Luther’s acute sense of human sinfulness led him, in the early 16th century, to advocate the absolute states that would not become a political reality for another hundred years. For Luther, the state’s prime duty was to restrain its wicked subjects by force, “in the same way as a savage wild beast is bound with chains and ropes”. The sovereign, independent state reflected this vision of the independent and sovereign individual. Luther’s view of religion, as an essentially subjective and private quest over which the state had no jurisdiction, would be the foundation of the modern secular ideal.

But Luther’s response to the peasants’ war in Germany in 1525, during the early stages of the wars of religion, suggested that a secularised political theory would not necessarily be a force for peace or democracy. The peasants, who were resisting the centralising policies of the German princes – which deprived them of their traditional rights – were mercilessly slaughtered by the state. Luther believed that they had committed the cardinal sin of mixing religion and politics: suffering was their lot, and they should have turned the other cheek, and accepted the loss of their lives and property. “A worldly kingdom,” he insisted, “cannot exist without an inequality of persons, some being free, some imprisoned, some lords, some subjects.” So, Luther commanded the princes, “Let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisoned, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel.”

Dawn of the liberal state

By the late 17th century, philosophers had devised a more urbane version of the secular ideal. For John Locke it had become self-evident that “the church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth. The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable.” The separation of religion and politics – “perfectly and infinitely different from each other” – was, for Locke, written into the very nature of things. But the liberal state was a radical innovation, just as revolutionary as the market economy that was developing in the west and would shortly transform the world. Because of the violent passions it aroused, Locke insisted that the segregation of “religion” from government was “above all things necessary” for the creation of a peaceful society.

Hence Locke was adamant that the liberal state could tolerate neither Catholics nor Muslims, condemning their confusion of politics and religion as dangerously perverse. Locke was a major advocate of the theory of natural human rights, originally pioneered by the Renaissance humanists and given definition in the first draft of the American Declaration of Independence as life, liberty and property. But secularisation emerged at a time when Europe was beginning to colonise the New World, and it would come to exert considerable influence on the way the west viewed those it had colonised – much as in our own time, the prevailing secular ideology perceives Muslim societies that seem incapable of separating faith from politics to be irredeemably flawed.

This introduced an inconsistency, since for the Renaissance humanists there could be no question of extending these natural rights to the indigenous inhabitants of the New World. Indeed, these peoples could justly be penalised for failing to conform to European norms. In the 16th century, Alberico Gentili , a professor of civil law at Oxford, argued that land that had not been exploited agriculturally, as it was in Europe, was “empty” and that “the seizure of [such] vacant places” should be “regarded as law of nature”. Locke agreed that the native peoples had no right to life, liberty or property. The “kings” of America, he decreed, had no legal right of ownership to their territory. He also endorsed a master’s “Absolute, arbitrary, despotical power” over a slave, which included “the power to kill him at any time”. The pioneers of secularism seemed to be falling into the same old habits as their religious predecessors. Secularism was designed to create a peaceful world order, but the church was so intricately involved in the economic, political and cultural structures of society that the secular order could only be established with a measure of violence. In North America, where there was no entrenched aristocratic government, the disestablishment of the various churches could be accomplished with relative ease. But in France, the church could be dismantled only by an outright assault; far from being experienced as a natural and essentially normative arrangement, the separation of religion and politics could be experienced as traumatic and terrifying.

During the French revolution, one of the first acts of the new national assembly on November 2, 1789, was to confiscate all church property to pay off the national debt: secularisation involved dispossession, humiliation and marginalisation. This segued into outright violence during the September massacres of 1792, when the mob fell upon the jails of Paris and slaughtered between two and three thousand prisoners, many of them priests. Early in 1794, four revolutionary armies were dispatched from Paris to quell an uprising in the Vendée against the anti-Catholic policies of the regime. Their instructions were to spare no one. At the end of the campaign, General François-Joseph Westermann reportedly wrote to his superiors: “The Vendée no longer exists. I have crushed children beneath the hooves of our horses, and massacred the women … The roads are littered with corpses.”

Ironically, no sooner had the revolutionaries rid themselves of one religion, than they invented another. Their new gods were liberty, nature and the French nation, which they worshipped in elaborate festivals choreographed by the artist Jacques Louis David. The same year that the goddess of reason was enthroned on the high altar of Notre Dame cathedral, the reign of terror plunged the new nation into an irrational bloodbath, in which some 17,000 men, women and children were executed by the state.

To die for one’s country

When Napoleon’s armies invaded Prussia in 1807, the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte similarly urged his countrymen to lay down their lives for the Fatherland – a manifestation of the divine and the repository of the spiritual essence of the Volk . If we define the sacred as that for which we are prepared to die, what Benedict Anderson called the “imagined community” of the nation had come to replace God. It is now considered admirable to die for your country, but not for your religion.

As the nation-state came into its own in the 19th century along with the industrial revolution, its citizens had to be bound tightly together and mobilised for industry. Modern communications enabled governments to create and propagate a national ethos, and allowed states to intrude into the lives of their citizens more than had ever been possible. Even if they spoke a different language from their rulers, subjects now belonged to the “nation,” whether they liked it or not. John Stuart Mill regarded this forcible integration as progress; it was surely better for a Breton, “the half-savage remnant of past times”, to become a French citizen than “sulk on his own rocks”. But in the late 19th century, the British historian Lord Acton feared that the adulation of the national spirit that laid such emphasis on ethnicity, culture and language, would penalise those who did not fit the national norm: “According, therefore, to the degree of humanity and civilisation in that dominant body which claims all the rights of the community, the inferior races are exterminated or reduced to servitude, or put in a condition of dependence.”

The Enlightenment philosophers had tried to counter the intolerance and bigotry that they associated with “religion” by promoting the equality of all human beings, together with democracy, human rights, and intellectual and political liberty, modern secular versions of ideals which had been promoted in a religious idiom in the past. The structural injustice of the agrarian state, however, had made it impossible to implement these ideals fully. The nation-state made these noble aspirations practical necessities. More and more people had to be drawn into the productive process and needed at least a modicum of education. Eventually they would demand the right to participate in the decisions of government. It was found by trial and error that those nations that democratised forged ahead economically, while those that confined the benefits of modernity to an elite fell behind. Innovation was essential to progress, so people had to be allowed to think freely, unconstrained by the constraints of their class, guild or church. Governments needed to exploit all their human resources, so outsiders, such as Jews in Europe and Catholics in England and America, were brought into the mainstream.

Yet this toleration was only skin-deep, and as Lord Acton had predicted, an intolerance of ethnic and cultural minorities would become the achilles heel of the nation-state. Indeed, the ethnic minority would replace the heretic (who had usually been protesting against the social order) as the object of resentment in the new nation-state. Thomas Jefferson, one of the leading proponents of the Enlightenment in the United States, instructed his secretary of war in 1807 that Native Americans were “backward peoples” who must either be “exterminated” or driven “beyond our reach” to the other side of the Mississippi “with the beasts of the forest”. The following year, Napoleon issued the “infamous decrees”, ordering the Jews of France to take French names, privatise their faith, and ensure that at least one in three marriages per family was with a gentile. Increasingly, as national feeling became a supreme value, Jews would come to be seen as rootless and cosmopolitan. In the late 19th century, there was an explosion of antisemitism in Europe, which undoubtedly drew upon centuries of Christian prejudice, but gave it a scientific rationale, claiming that Jews did not fit the biological and genetic profile of the Volk, and should be eliminated from the body politic as modern medicine cut out a cancer.

When secularisation was implemented in the developing world, it was experienced as a profound disruption – just as it had originally been in Europe. Because it usually came with colonial rule, it was seen as a foreign import and rejected as profoundly unnatural. In almost every region of the world where secular governments have been established with a goal of separating religion and politics, a counter-cultural movement has developed in response, determined to bring religion back into public life. What we call “fundamentalism” has always existed in a symbiotic relationship with a secularisation that is experienced as cruel, violent and invasive. All too often an aggressive secularism has pushed religion into a violent riposte. Every fundamentalist movement that I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation, convinced that the liberal or secular establishment is determined to destroy their way of life. This has been tragically apparent in the Middle East.

Very often modernising rulers have embodied secularism at its very worst and have made it unpalatable to their subjects. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic of Turkey in 1918, is often admired in the west as an enlightened Muslim leader, but for many in the Middle East he epitomised the cruelty of secular nationalism. He hated Islam, describing it as a “putrefied corpse”, and suppressed it in Turkey by outlawing the Sufi orders and seizing their properties, closing down the madrasas and appropriating their income. He also abolished the beloved institution of the caliphate, which had long been a dead-letter politically but which symbolised a link with the Prophet. For groups such as al-Qaida and Isis, reversing this decision has become a paramount goal.

Ataturk also continued the policy of ethnic cleansing that had been initiated by the last Ottoman sultans; in an attempt to control the rising commercial classes, they systematically deported the Armenian and Greek-speaking Christians, who comprised 90% of the bourgeoisie. The Young Turks, who seized power in 1909, espoused the antireligious positivism associated with August Comte and were also determined to create a purely Turkic state. During the first world war, approximately one million Armenians were slaughtered in the first genocide of the 20th century: men and youths were killed where they stood, while women, children and the elderly were driven into the desert where they were raped, shot, starved, poisoned, suffocated or burned to death. Clearly inspired by the new scientific racism, Mehmet Resid, known as the “execution governor”, regarded the Armenians as “dangerous microbes” in “the bosom of the Fatherland”. Ataturk completed this racial purge. For centuries Muslims and Christians had lived together on both sides of the Aegean; Ataturk partitioned the region, deporting Greek Christians living in what is now Turkey to Greece, while Turkish-speaking Muslims in Greece were sent the other way.

The fundamentalist reaction

Secularising rulers such as Ataturk often wanted their countries to look modern, that is, European. In Iran in 1928, Reza Shah Pahlavi issued the laws of uniformity of dress: his soldiers tore off women’s veils with bayonets and ripped them to pieces in the street. In 1935, the police were ordered to open fire on a crowd who had staged a peaceful demonstration against the dress laws in one of the holiest shrines of Iran, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians. Policies like this made veiling, which has no Qur’anic endorsement, an emblem of Islamic authenticity in many parts of the Muslim world.

Following the example of the French, Egyptian rulers secularised by disempowering and impoverishing the clergy. Modernisation had begun in the Ottoman period under the governor Muhammad Ali, who starved the Islamic clergy financially, taking away their tax-exempt status, confiscating the religiously endowed properties that were their principal source of income, and systematically robbing them of any shred of power. When the reforming army officer Jamal Abdul Nasser came to power in 1952, he changed tack and turned the clergy into state officials. For centuries, they had acted as a protective bulwark between the people and the systemic violence of the state. Now Egyptians came to despise them as government lackeys. This policy would ultimately backfire, because it deprived the general population of learned guidance that was aware of the complexity of the Islamic tradition. Self-appointed freelancers, whose knowledge of Islam was limited, would step into the breach, often to disastrous effect.

If some Muslims today fight shy of secularism, it is not because they have been brainwashed by their faith but because they have often experienced efforts at secularisation in a particularly virulent form. Many regard the west’s devotion to the separation of religion and politics as incompatible with admired western ideals such as democracy and freedom. In 1992, a military coup in Algeria ousted a president who had promised democratic reforms, and imprisoned the leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which seemed certain to gain a majority in the forthcoming elections. Had the democratic process been thwarted in such an unconstitutional manner in Iran or Pakistan, there would have been worldwide outrage. But because an Islamic government had been blocked by the coup, there was jubilation in some quarters of the western press – as if this undemocratic action had instead made Algeria safe for democracy. In rather the same way, there was an almost audible sigh of relief in the west when the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power in Egypt last year. But there has been less attention to the violence of the secular military dictatorship that has replaced it, which has exceeded the abuses of the Mubarak regime.

After a bumpy beginning, secularism has undoubtedly been valuable to the west, but we would be wrong to regard it as a universal law. It emerged as a particular and unique feature of the historical process in Europe; it was an evolutionary adaptation to a very specific set of circumstances. In a different environment, modernity may well take other forms. Many secular thinkers now regard “religion” as inherently belligerent and intolerant, and an irrational, backward and violent “other” to the peaceable and humane liberal state – an attitude with an unfortunate echo of the colonialist view of indigenous peoples as hopelessly “primitive”, mired in their benighted religious beliefs. There are consequences to our failure to understand that our secularism, and its understanding of the role of religion, is exceptional. When secularisation has been applied by force, it has provoked a fundamentalist reaction – and history shows that fundamentalist movements which come under attack invariably grow even more extreme. The fruits of this error are on display across the Middle East: when we look with horror upon the travesty of Isis, we would be wise to acknowledge that its barbaric violence may be, at least in part, the offspring of policies guided by our disdain.

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14.4: The Conflict Perspective on Religion

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Marx and the “Opiate of the Masses”

Karl Marx argues that religion works to calm uncertainty over our role in the universe and in society, and to maintain the status quo.

Learning Objectives

Give an example which either supports or contradicts Marx’s idea that ”religion is the opium of the people”

• One of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx is, religion is the opium of the people .
• Karl Marx argues that religion plays a significant role in maintaining the status quo by promising rewards in the after-life rather than in this life.
• Social inequalities result from the differences inherent in class structures, such as the inequality between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
• proletariat : the working class or lower class
• status quo : the current state of things; the way things are, as opposed to the way they could be; the existing state of affairs.
• bourgeoisie : The capitalist class.

One of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx is, religion is the opium of the people . It was translated from the German original, “Die Religion… ist das Opium des Volkes,” and is often referred to as “religion is the opiate of the masses. ” Taken in context, Marx is arguing that religion was constructed by people to calm uncertainty over our role in the universe and in society.

Early social theorists offered explanations and analysis of religion in terms of the function of religion in society, the role of religion in the life of the individual, and the nature (and origin) of religion. With ‘the social-conflict approach,’ Karl Marx argues that religion plays a significant role in maintaining the status quo. Marx argues that religion accomplishes this by promising rewards in the after-life rather than in this life. By focusing attention on otherworldly rewards, religion pacifies members by providing a worldview that deflects attention that would otherwise be directed at the inequalities of this world.

Marx’s approach to sociology was critical in the sense that, in contrast to the knowledge for knowledge’s sake approach, it advocated change. Criticism of the system in place when he was writing was inherent in Marx’s approach; because of this, he took a particular stand on the existence of religion, namely, that it should be done away with. His efforts were, in his mind, based solely on what can be called applied science. Marx saw himself as doing sociology and economic theory for the sake of human development. As Christiano states, “Marx did not believe in science for science’s sake…he believed that he was also advancing a theory that would be a useful tool in effecting a revolutionary upheaval of the capitalist system in favor of socialism” (2008, 124). As such, the crux of his arguments was that humans are best guided by reason. Religion, Marx held, was a significant hindrance to reason, inherently masking the truth and misguiding followers. Marx viewed social alienation as the heart of social inequality. The antithesis to this alienation is freedom. Thus, to propagate freedom means to present individuals with the truth and give them a choice to accept or deny it. In this, “Marx never suggested that religion ought to be prohibited” (Christiano 2008, 126).

Religion and Social Control

Marx viewed religion as a tool of social control used by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat content with an unequal status quo.

Evaluate Karl Marx’s critical approach to religion

• The social-conflict approach to religion highlights how religion, as a phenomenon of human behavior, maintains social inequality by advancing a worldview that justifies oppression.
• Karl Marx’s critical approach demanded that action be taken to resolve social inequalities. This was in stark contrast to his scholarly peers, many of whom pursued scholarship for the sake of knowledge, and did not attach to these academic projects overt political goals.
• Karl Marx viewed religion as a social control used to maintain the status quo in a given society.

Marxist Theory of Religion

The social-conflict approach is rooted in Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. According to Marx, in a capitalist society, religion plays a critical role in maintaining an unequal status quo, in which certain groups of people have radically more resources and power than other groups of people. Marx argued that the bourgeoise used religion as a tool to keep the less powerful proletariat pacified. Marx argued that religion was able to do this by promising rewards in the after-life, instead of in this life. It was in this sense that Marx asserted the following. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless circumstances. It is the opium of the people…The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness” (p.72). In this passage, Marx is calling for the proletariat to discard religion and its deceit about other-worldly events. Only then would this class of people be able to rise up against the bourgeoisie and gain control of the means of production, and only then would they achieve real rewards, in this life. Thus, the social-conflict approach to religion highlights how religion, as a phenomenon of human behavior, functions to maintain social inequality by providing a worldview that justifies oppression.

It should be reiterated here that Marx’s approach to sociology was critical in the sense that it advocated for change in the world. This is in stark contrast to other scholars, many of whom pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and lack overt political aims. Because Marx was committed to criticizing the prevailing organization of society during his time, he took a particularly aggressive stance towards religion. He believed that it was a tool of social control used to maintain an unequal status quo, and that it should be abolished.

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• status quo. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/status_quo)
• Proletariat. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat)
• Social inequality. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_inequality)
• Bourgeoisie. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie)
• Sociology of religion. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_religion%23Karl_Marx)
• bourgeoisie. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bourgeoisie )
• proletariat. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proletariat)
• ( Public Domain ; Wikimedia via Wikimedia)
• #24 December 4th week.n| Flickr - Photo Sharing!. ( CC BY-SA ; Flickr via http://www.flickr.com/photos/nextsentence/3127804508/ )
• Introduction to Sociology/Religion. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Religion%23Social-Conflict)
• Holding a vajra empowerment wearing 5 Dhyani Buddha Crowns, lay people, monk, nun, Sakya Lamdre, Highest Yoga Tantra, Tharlam Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal | Flickr - Photo Sharing!. ( CC BY ; Flickr via http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/6849721833/ )

Religion: A Cause of War?

THE ROLE OF IRRELIGION

With the resumption of armed hostilities between Palestine and Israel, we are sure to witness once more secularists taking delight in the notion that religion causes war. Yet this line of thinking is something of a puzzlement. The most irreligious of centuries, the 20th, gave us the most wars, while the greatest war-makers and mass murderers of all time — Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong — were anti -religious.

According to the three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars (2005), less than seven percent of conflicts can be credibly blamed on religion, and we may safely assume, on this basis, that the rest (93 percent) are due to a lack of religion because the Encyclopedia pegs them as products of passion, worldliness, and envy, which run counter to the religious ideal.

Karen Armstrong, in Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014), a book published by Alfred Knopf and favorably reviewed by The New York Times , argues that real religion does not lead to violence; it prevents violence. The New Testament Letter of St. James explains why: “Wisdom that is from above is…peaceable, moderate, docile, and…full of mercy…. The fruit of [divine] justice is sown in peace by those who make peace.” James goes on, “Whence do wars and quarrels come among you? Is it not from…your passions…? You covet and do not have; you kill and envy, and cannot obtain. You quarrel and wrangle” (Jas. 3:17-18; 4:1-2).

The Greek philosopher Plato, who was deeply religious, put it as succinctly as anyone when he narrowed down the cause of war to “desires” of the “body.” It is interesting, speaking of Greece, that sports festivals held at Olympia in honor of the gods were times of enforced truces between warring city states.

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Essay on Religion As The Main Cause Of War

Students are often asked to write an essay on Religion As The Main Cause Of War in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Religion As The Main Cause Of War

Introduction.

Religion is a belief system that gives meaning to life. It brings people together, but it can also cause conflicts. Many wars in history were caused by religious disagreements. This essay will discuss how religion can lead to war.

Religion and Conflict

Religion can cause war in many ways. One way is through religious differences. When people of different religions can’t agree, it can lead to fighting. For example, the Crusades were wars between Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages.

Religious Intolerance

Another cause of war is religious intolerance. This means not respecting other people’s religions. If a group feels their religion is threatened, they might fight to protect it. This was a cause of many wars in history.

Religion and Power

Religion can also be used to gain power. Leaders may use religion to unite people against a common enemy. This can lead to war. For example, some leaders in the past have used religion to start wars for their own gain.

In conclusion, religion can cause war in many ways. Differences in beliefs, intolerance, and the misuse of religion for power can all lead to conflict. Understanding this can help us prevent future wars.

250 Words Essay on Religion As The Main Cause Of War

Religion is often seen as a source of peace and unity. But in some cases, it can also lead to conflict and war. This essay looks at how religion can be a main cause of war.

Religion can cause war in many ways. One way is by creating divisions among people. Different religions have different beliefs and practices. This can make people feel separated from others who don’t share their faith.

Religious Differences and War

Sometimes, these differences can lead to misunderstanding and fear. People might feel threatened by other religions. This fear can grow into anger and hate. And these feelings can lead to violence and war.

Religion Used as a Tool

Religion can also be used as a tool to start wars. Some leaders use religion to gain power and control. They might start a war in the name of religion to get more followers or territory.

Religion can bring people together, but it can also tear them apart. It can lead to war when it creates division, fear, and hate. And it can be used as a tool by those who want power and control. To prevent wars caused by religion, we need to understand and respect the beliefs of others.

This is a brief look at how religion can be a main cause of war. It’s a complex issue with many factors involved. But by understanding these factors, we can work towards a more peaceful world.

500 Words Essay on Religion As The Main Cause Of War

Religion is a belief system that people follow to make sense of their lives. It gives them a sense of purpose and a guide for how to live. But sometimes, people’s different religious beliefs can lead to conflict and even war. This essay will explore how religion can be a main cause of war.

The Role of Religion in War

Religion can play a big role in causing wars. This happens when people believe that their religion is the only right one, and they try to force others to follow it. This can lead to tension and conflict, which can then turn into war. For example, the Crusades in the Middle Ages were wars fought by Christians to take control of the Holy Land from Muslims. This was a war caused by religious beliefs.

Sometimes, leaders use religion as a way to gain power. They might start a war in the name of their religion to get more followers or to control more land. The wars in the Middle East are an example of this. Many of these wars are not just about religion, but also about power and control.

Religion and Identity

Religion can also be a part of people’s identity. When people feel that their religious identity is under threat, they might fight to protect it. This can lead to war. For example, the conflict in Northern Ireland was partly about religious identity, with Protestants and Catholics fighting against each other.

Religion and Fear

Fear can also lead to war. If people are scared that another religion is going to take over, they might fight to stop it. This fear can be used by leaders to start wars. For example, some leaders in history have used fear of other religions to start wars and gain power.

In conclusion, religion can be a main cause of war. This can happen when people believe their religion is the only right one, when leaders use religion to gain power, when people’s religious identity is under threat, and when fear of other religions leads to war. But it’s important to remember that not all religious people are violent or want to start wars. Most people want peace, no matter what their religion is.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN AFRICAN CONFLICTS: THE CASES OF NIGERIA AND SUDAN

Religion is a controversial issue in world affairs. Especially in Africa, religion has been at the heart of much of the contemporary conflicts. Religion is often depicted as a trigger factor in many conflicts. Religion is also often being blamed as a tool to mobilise people during conflicts. In many parts of the world people from different religions live in peace and coexist without any conflict. Then why is religion such a great cause of conflict in other parts of the world? People are sensitive about religion because religion forms part of an individuals’ identity. Religion is not only an integrated part of individual identities, but it is also important for group identity Religion and nationalism goes hand in hand. The Scottish, Russians, Jews, Mormons and Afrikaners all at some time argued that they are “Gods people”. Religion is at the heart of a community’s value system in most parts of the world, so people who practice a different religion are easily labelled as worthless. A threat to one’s beliefs is also a threat to one’s very being and that is why people are willing to fight for their religious beliefs. Religion is a glue that can bind and unify a nation or a group of people, or it can lead to the destruction of nations as well as lead to intra-state conflicts. The relationship between religion and conflict is a complex one, and one need to take into consideration many factors before one can argue that religion is the main cause of conflict. Faith make people feel safe, because they can predict what is going to happen in the future (especially in the afterlife). Most religions teach that war is wrong and that violence must only be used as a last resort. The religious scripts give guidelines on when it is just to use violence, but people can interpret these scripts in different ways. One can ask the question: So why is religion a factor in war at all when all the main faiths have little time for violence and advocate peace?

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Religion and violence have been linked together in human kind and history. Various religious beliefs have justified violence or failed to condemn acts of violence and many have found themselves enmeshed in long prevailing violent conflicts. Religion played a role in the colonial expansion in Africa and the process in many cases resulted into violent confrontation between the colonizers and the colonial territories, even in modern state formation struggles, separatist movements, religion has been identified as playing a leading role in exacerbating violent conflict. Religion has also been used by extremist or radical groups to justify their obligation to violent action through acts of terrorism today. In core regions of the world economy, religiously framed conflicts became displaced in the nineteenth and twentieth century by social struggles that played out along class lines and, in the latter part of the twentieth, between superpowers. However, these conflicts themselves often had “religious” overtones (Gopin, 1997: 2). Religion has facilitated violent conflict, hatred and intolerance, played a “central role in the inner life and social behavior of millions of human beings, many of whom are currently actively engaged in struggle” (Gopin, 1997: 2). Scripture passages have been “cited to encourage participation in warfare and increase animosity” (DRDC CR Report, 2010: 1). However whereas many conflicts may be regarded as religiously motivated, they may not actually be routed from religious antagonism and differences, certainly in some non secular societies with deeply rooted religious observation and loyalty, chances are high that other factors, ranging from economic, social and political marginalization, groups with long running grievances and desires can invoke religion to unify resistance against perceived injustice and oppression, and in some cases radical groups use it to fuel armed violence as we have witnessed today in some parts of the world. “Religion can contribute to grotesque ideologies of domination, death and destruction that are dangerous and combustible” (Little, 2007: 430.). In this paper I will examine some theories and explanations linking religion and conflict, whereas there is no specific or clear theory to date that strongly supports the link between religion and violence, The theoretical basis and explanations below are part of the continuing debate on the definition of religion, its features, characteristics, how it has been used and interpreted by various actors in conflict situations. In this paper therefore, I will also examine the role played by religion in the Sudan “Conflict between the Muslim Arab North and the Christian South” (Verney et al, 1995) indigenous ethnic groups, though much of its role may have been interpreted to trigger the conflict, I will as well highlight its positive role during the conflict.

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This essay analyses how religion has had a significant impact on increasing and promoting conflict throughout history. Focussing on the 30 Years War, the 2nd Sudanese Civil War and the Israel/Palestine conflict this paper displays the impact the Abrahamic religions have had on world conflict.

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Violence may be conceptualised in a narrow sense as physical harm done to persons or property, or in a broader sense as the systemic violation of people&#39;s rights and dignity or any interference that limits one&#39;s potential. Thus, violence can be direct or indirect. It can be structural, cultural or direct. The essays in this volume engage with different theories and concepts of violence, applied mostly to sub-Saharan case studies, to offer diverse perspectives on how religion is instrumentalised for violence or peacebuilding.

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The British Academy's latest international policy report explores how the role of religion in conflict and peacebuilding has all too often been depicted in binary terms, which have obscured the complexity of the subject. The report argues that religion is never a static or isolated entity but should rather be understood as a fluid system of variables, contingent upon a large number of contextual and historical factors. By observing how religion operates and interacts with other aspects of the human experience at the global, institutional, group and individual levels, this report aims to gain a more nuanced understanding of its role (or potential role) in both conflict and peacebuilding

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"This initial book in an exciting new series looks at one of the key global issues with which religion is intimately involved: the sustainable development goals. This punchy, thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the relevant issues is a must-read for scholars, practitioners and university students. It will help set the focus of debates on this issue. I warmly recommend it". Jeffrey Haynes, London Metropolitan University, UK "The 'Religion Matters' series is a timely and accessible compendium con-textualizing the role of religion within the critical issues of our time. The first volume, On the Significance of Religion in Conflict and Conflict Resolution, demonstrates through careful analysis and illustrative case studies around the three Abrahamic traditions the real yet complex impact of religion in the global sphere, showing clearly the need for collaboration and understanding across sectors and religious traditions in conflict resolution. Building upon the rich academic expertise and lived experiences of the authors, and situating itself within the broader religion and peacebuilding scholarship of recent decades, this volume raises to the forefront the 'how' and 'why' religion does indeed matter". Melissa Nozell, United States Institute of Peace, USA "'Does religion matter' is a crucial question for billions of people around the world. Although in recent years, many governments and international organizations have begun considering the role of religion in policy, nevertheless these efforts remain in their initial phase. This edited volume creatively tackles this central issue in international politics. Combining several real and challenging cases, the Editors successfully dispel the myth that religion alone causes violent conflicts and is responsible for their solutions. The book also illustrates how the three Abrahamic traditions can be deployed effectively to positively contribute to conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Israeli Palestinian, Pakistan, and Rwanda settings. The edited volume adds an important voice to the field of interreligious peacebuilding. It also responds to the need for further engagement between policy makers and peacebuilding communities and practitioners". Mohammed Abu-Nimer, American University School, USA "This volume is an important contribution to efforts to bring religion back into the mainstream of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Analyzing religion's role in conflict and peace by applying a simple framework to several rich case studies, the authors convincingly demonstrate that religion matters for anyone working in the field of conflict resolution today". Owen Frazer, Center for Security Studies, Zurich, Switzerland

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This paper seeks to develop a nuanced and qualified account of the distinctive ways in which religion can inform political conflict and violence. It seeks to transcend the opposition between particularizing stances, which see religiously informed political conflicts as sui generis and uniquely intractable, and generalizing stances, which assimilate religiously informed political conflicts to other forms of political conflict. The paper specifies the distinctively religious stakes of certain political conflicts, informed by distinctively religious understandings of right order, as well as the distinctiveness of religion as a rich matrix of interlocking modalities and mechanisms that – in certain contexts – can contribute to political conflict and violence even when the stakes are not distinctively religious. On the other hand, the paper shows that many putatively religious conflicts are fundamentally similar to other conflicts over political power, economic resources, symbolic recognition, or cultural reproduction.

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Does Religion Cause Conflict or Peace ?

This essay will explore the dual role of religion in both causing conflicts and promoting peace. It will discuss historical and contemporary examples where religion has been a source of conflict, as well as instances where it has been instrumental in peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts. Also at PapersOwl you can find more free essay examples related to Gender.

How it works

Religion, according to Mrs. Kieffer, is “a set of beliefs and rituals based on a unique vision of how the world ought to be”. Religion has been a significant role in the lives of the everyday person, and while it has been a major factor in the history of humans, – creating hope and faith – it has also caused additional and unintentional conflicts in society. Initially, and still to a certain degree, religion is still a large part of today’s society, although the children of this century has become less devoted to religion and more devoted to the aspects of the ever advancing technology.

Moreover as part of society, religion has caused many issues concerning gender inequality and inequality to the LGBTQ groups. Consequently, religion as a whole has caused many wars to erupt throughout history, because of its “unique” beliefs in certain aspect “of how the world ought to be”.

Religions across the world have principles and rules in which the followers are to live by. In religion women are considered to be 2nd to all male be it father, husband, or son. A women since ancient times are considered to stay at home and beare children for her husband’s family, there was never a mention of a women standing up and fight against the discrimination against these gender roles. For example Timothy 2:11-12 said “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quite”(Olivia, Cassaundra, Isabella) , and to this day religious women still does not differentiate that a women should not bow to a man as all genders are equal. Women are the center of the religion, as they have been extremely active in the participation in rituals. For example, Woodhead from Washington Post wrote that “Nuns, for example, in the Christian tradition had huge power at certain times in history, acting as very independent groups doing their own thing without a great deal of clerical control” In the present day, religion has advance in some part, making it possible for women to hold power in some branches of certain religion. For example, less than 12% of women are pastors in 2012, even though the percentage are small, women are starting to hold power even if it is a small amount (Melissa, Gabe, Brock).

Another conflict that religion has with is the indepence of a person’s choice in relationship. In most religion a man is not supposed to court a man or a women is not to court a women, because it is considered a taboo. For example, LGBTQ People and Religion wrote, “ For most of human history, gay men and lesbians have been viciously persecuted. Today, homosexuals are a favorite target of the religious right, whose members frequently quote scripture to justify anti-gay bias and even violence.’’ Although , the reason for these discriminations are because of wrong interpretations of the multiple religious texts. An example of the is from LGBTQ People and Religion who wrtoe that the “ Biblical interpretations that are used to condemn gay men and lesbians are used in much the same way that other readings of scripture have been to justify the perceived inferior status of other minority groups. This is, in part, because the Bible itself contains many opportunities for potentially controversial interpretations.” in these interpretations many will interpret it the way they view of it as right. An example of this is from 2017 in which a homosexual couple; David and Charlie wanted a wedding cake and asked the backer Jack from Master Cake to make them a wedding cake but he refused because it would be against his religious teaching and that it would express and opinion in which he did not support. The situation was taken to the supreme court, and they were in the favor or Jack. Although it was in jack’s favor, he knew the reason why the couple did what they did and the couple knew why Jack did what he did.

Consequently, in the same fashion religion caused some of the major wars in the world, because of the idea of how things are meant to be. For example the most current major war about religion in the middle east was because of the idea that the Holy land of Jerusalem is for only one group and should not be shared, between the Palestinians and Israelis. The conflict between these 2 countries started in the 20th century and is still ongoing, with a death count of 9,854 palestine and 1,261 israelites in 2019 alone. Another major current conflict in the past few years is a militant group from Al-Qaeda called ISIS; the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a group who believe that they are the new Caliph and is the new Islamic Force. They uses religion as a reason to terrorise and frighten people because the belive that it is the way for people to see what they believe in and for them to promote their religion. Overall religion causes wars, and inequality between people whether they be because of genders or personal preferences and the “unique” beliefs of different types of people and their beliefs in certain aspect “of how the world ought to be”.

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53 Religious Conflict Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best religious conflict topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 interesting topics to write about religious conflict, 🔎 good research topics about religious conflict.

• Religious Conflicts in Rational Choice Theory In the same breadth of analysis, this theory would be used to explain how religion gives people a higher sense of purpose for their existence in a way that would make them sacrifice their existence […]
• Religious Impact on Cultural Conflicts Numerous conflicts in the modern world include a religious component. The conflict between the colonists and the natives resulted as a result. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Religious Conflict in the History: The Key Causes of Conflicts Another factor that led to the partitioning of the countries was the strong ideological divide that existed between Muslims and Hindus in India.
• Implications of Religious Conflicts in Present World 2 Also, there is a surge in various conflicts across countries, of which religious conflicts are important and of particular interest to the present discussion.
• Sunni–Shia Religious Conflict in Iraq It would be proper to state that approximately sixty-five percent if Iraq inhabitants are the followers of the Shia movement, whereas the other thirty-five percent of the state’s population contributes to the Sunni group.
• Conflict of The Beatles and the Religious Far Right Reverend David Noebel was one of the pioneers of the anti-rock and anti-Beatles crusades. Noebel himself was anti-communist, and he feared that the Beatles could spearhead a communist takeover in the United States.
• Ethno-Religious Nationalisms in Conflict in Bosnia The conflicting ethnic groups appeared because of the differences that emerged in the state leadership. The diversity of ethnic groups in Yugoslavia deepened the conflicts.
• Religious and Cultural Conflicts in Syria Before the ongoing Syrian uprising that has surprised the whole world due to the government’s brutality and interests from various world powers, the country’s administrative system was suppressive and indifferent to the sufferings of the […]
• Religious Values in War and Peace Although war is a natural thing, which occurs in the presence of humanity, the maintenance of ethical and moral values is of great significance.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: Civil War or Religious Conflict and the Role of Women This paper therefore, provides an historical overview of the conflict witnessed in Bosnia between the Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks, the role of women in this conflict, and an analysis of the role of both national […]
• Religious Scriptures: Justifying War and Peace It is also vital to take into account the viewpoint that factors that determine peace and war in the world religions are based on the divine commandments, teachings attained from the scriptures and the divine […]
• Religious Ethnic Factions of Syrian Civil War In addition to this, Syria experienced a drought of astonishing proportions in 2008 especially in the northern regions; with effects including seventy percent of livestock and eighty percent of people living in these regions moving […]
• Conflicts of Sects, Cults and Religious Movements This happens when the sect is forced to embrace the features of the denomination in order to comply with the law.
• Ethnic and Religious Conflict: The Utah War
• The Merchant of Venice: Religious Conflict between Christians and Jews
• How Religious Conflict Shapes State Repression
• Religious Conflict Between the Nazis and Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Religion as One of The Causes of The Cold War
• Describing Israel’s Religious Conflict
• Paintings That Reflect the Religious Conflict Between the Protestant and Catholic
• Description of Religious Conflict Between India and Pakistan
• The Connection Between Religion and Religious Conflicts
• Cultural, Language, and Religious Conflicts in “Bless Me, Ultima”
• Examples and Analysis of Religious Conflicts
• Why Did the War Cause Religious Conflicts
• Political and Religious Conflicts in Dante’s Inferno
• Religious Conflicts With the Iranian Government
• The War in Kashmir a Religious Conflict
• The Religious Aspect of Social Conflict Theory
• Religious Conflicts: The Spanish Civil War
• The Religious Conflict in South Asia
• Religious Conflicts Between Christians and Muslims
• Religious Conflict at the Center of American Society
• Cultural, Religious and Language Conflicts in Bless Me, Ultima
• Religious Conflict Due to Immigration
• The Connection Between Religious Conflict and Intolerance
• The History of Religious Conflicts in America
• Religious Conflict in Cameroon Among Other Conflicts
• Ethnicity and Religion as Sources of Conflict
• Political and Religious Conflict of Northern Ireland
• Describing Religious Conflict in Beowulf
• Countering Sectarian and Religious Conflict in the Middle East
• Religious Conflict in 20th Century Non-western Literature
• Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Nigeria
• Managing Religious Conflict in Therapy
• Describing Scarlet Letter Religious Conflict
• Religious Conflict Between Two Christian Sects
• Religious Conflicts Around the Globe and a Solution
• Describing the Colombian Religious Conflict
• The Economics of Religious Conflict in an Indian City
• Religious Conflict in Muslim Countries
• History of Religious Conflict in Russia
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• Chicago (N-B)

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IvyPanda . "53 Religious Conflict Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/religious-conflict-essay-topics/.

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