A Research Paper by Chaplain Mike Lavelle

An Examination of Religious Violence

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." Blaise Pascal

Jonathan Rauch argued in The Atlantic Monthly (May 2003) that “the greatest development in modern religion is apatheism, a sense of not caring one way or another whether God exists” (Volf, 2003, p. 39), this claim fits in well with secularization theory that predicted the decline of religion (Hall, 2001, p.3) and the claim that in days past, “most social scientists tended to see religion as a vestige of a bygone age” (Demerath and Straight, 1997).  However, the post cold war period is “a time of great cultural and political transformations” (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 291). One of these problems is the “potentially explosive mix of nationalism and religion” (Juergensmeyer, 1996, p. 2).  Religion has not apparently fell by the wayside of modernity and it fact is surviving and even thriving, (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 291).

 In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, questions about the role of religion in violence is being asked, although such questions could have been asked in regard to the atrocities committed in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war or the civil war in the Sudan.  It was estimated in 1999, that 56 ethnic and religious tensions existed in the world, to include Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Ireland, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Increasingly, the world experiences religious violence on a routine basis (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p. 4).

 Research confirms that there has been a rise in worldwide religious violence, specifically as Juergensmeyer cites (p. 6, 2000) in 1980 the U.S State Department listed “scarcely a single religious organization” by 1998, “over half were religious” (p.6). Additionally, according to a RAND survey, (p. 6) the number of terrorist groups in one year jumped from 16 of 49 to 26 of 56. Huntington (1996) in his book Clash of Civilizations makes the argument that religion determines culture and that at least eight separate culture clashes are occurring in the world today. The Middle East, of course, goes without saying, and he points to the Balkan (Yugoslavian) region as a place where clashes between Christianity, Orthodox Christianity and Islam often erupt into violence. Japan is another area ripe for conflict, as is the Indian subcontinent and Hindu region. Latin America and Africa will have emerging clashes, mostly Christian infighting, or in the case of Africa (which is 40% Christian and 40% Muslim), a conflict between Islam and Christianity.  
 
It would seem obvious that religion plays a significant role in many of the conflicts in the world today. Yet, researchers from Britain’s Bradford University were asked by the BBC to see how many wars were caused by religion.  Their conclusion was that “After reviewing historical analyses by a diverse array of specialists…there have been few genuinely religious wars in the last 100 years (Austin, Kranock, Oommen, 2003, p. 1).

 Still, religion is an important variable in conflict, war, and ethnic cleansing. Regardless of what studies may confirm or deny, when a religious actor claims “What I have done, I have done for the sake of God, the Merciful, the Powerful," as wrote Khaled Ahmed el Islambouli, one of the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar el Sadat (Heikal 1983, 253) or "I did what I did for God and the Israeli people," as claimed by Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Jerusalem Post, 6 April 1996), the question of how religion fosters, encourages, and facilitates violence is a valid question. However, the literature on the role religion plays in violence reveals not a lack of theories, but instead a wide range of theories. However, there are some common points within the literature, but also significant divergence.

 On the one hand it is said that, “it is common knowledge that much of the violence done in the name of religion has little to do with religion” (Ariarajah, 2003).  Certainly, it is true that “every major religion of the world has expressed at some point, through its leaders and thinkers, a commitment to the value of peace, both in classical texts and modern reformulation” (Gopin, p. 2000, p. 13). Some scholars believe that “whoever uses religion to ferment violence contradicts religion’s deepest and truest inspiration” (Tagliabue, 2002, A4) and religious violence is seen as deviant from the norm and not in keeping with true religion (Juergensmeyer, 2004c). But, on the other hand, it is also true that, “all religions sanction, even enjoin violence under certain circumstances” (Lincoln, 2000, p. 73). Wellman and Tokuno (2004) believe it is folly to assert that true religion seeks peace or when violence is manifest, religion is somehow hijacked (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 293). Historically, religion and violence are woven together (Hall, 2001, p. 2) with religion showing a great potential to express violence or contain it (Martin, 2001, p. 35).

 There is an apparent paradox compounded by the sense that religion should provide, as Juergensmeyer notes, “tranquility and peace, not terror” (p, 5, 2000). Understanding the role religion plays in violence is complicated because “sometimes religion motivates violence, and sometimes it is used, even manipulated, to justify violence. There also is violence unrelated to religion that gets religiously charged because the conflicting parties happen to be of different faith" (Premawardhana, 2002). Religion can either express or contain violence (Martin, 2001, p. 35). While there is familiarity with religious terrorists, “religious actors are playing an increasingly important and valuable role in resolving international conflicts” (Gopin, 2000, p. 13).  We are confronted with a paradox of a religious traditions “being used to promote harmony and tolerance on the one hand, and to justify war and intolerance on the other” (Asani, 2002, p. 52). This paradox can be seen in what Appleby (2000, p. 23) describes when in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, Muslim medical workers bring healing to those wounded by a Muslim terrorist, suggesting the paradox of faith based healing as well as hate.

As one researcher notes, (Hall, p. 4) “It is important to try to distinguish between specifically religious violence and violence that may have religious dimensions, but can be better explained in other terms.” Part of the problem of distinction is the blurring of religion and politics, specifically, the politicization of religion and the religionization of politics. The first seeks political solutions to religious problems, and the second seeks religions solutions to political problems.  Both can apply violence although the religionization of politics can provide justification (Burgess, online, 2004).

 The first place to attempt some distinction is with religion itself. However, religion is one of those topics that everybody recognizes, but finds hard to define (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 291).  The simplest place to start is with the word religion. The original meaning of religious was binding” (Kurth, p. 284) which suggests a communal orientation (Hall, 2001, p. 13) as well as a sense of boundary or community.  Religious actors then refer to people formed by a religious community and who are “acting to uphold, extend and defend its values and precepts (Hall, 2001, p. 9). “Religion embraces a creed, a code of conduct, and a confessional community (Hall, 2001, p. 8). Violence, for our purposes, can be defined as those actions corporal, written, or verbal, more specifically, when we think of religious violence, we focus more on the physical actions of injury and death, especially in symbolic acts of terrorism (Jackman, 2001, p, 443). On one level, violence is linked with religion because “coercive violence may have a moral role in certain circumstances” (Appleby, 2000, p. 49).  Religious actors who commit violence see their actions (as noted before) as morally justified acts. On a deeper level, for the holy martyrs of the Hamas in Palestine, suicide is seen as sacred, a form of personal redemption (Appleby, 2000, p. 25, 6).  Talking with some Sikh members of a martyr brigade, Juergensmeyer (2004a) quoted one as saying (p. 2) “We’re in a great moment of history and it’s a time of conflict between good and evil, and truth and untruth, and religion and untruth.”  This same notion was repeated in an interview with Mahmud Abouhalima one of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who said (p. 3) “There’s a war going on, there’s a war between truth and evil, and good and bad, of religion and unreligion.”  Finally, Juergensmeyer recounts that this theme of a cosmic battle between good and evil was one that was oft repeated by revivalist preachers of his youth (2004a, p. 4).

 Juergensmeyer also noted that talking with members of the martyr brigade, that their experience was a “religious experience that was almost redemptive (p. 2).  Nepstad (2004, p. 198), researching differences between religious peacemakers and those who use violence found that those who resort to violence don’t see any ambiguity between good and evil, and they understood themselves as protectors of righteousness. Additionally, religious terrorists believe there is only one unchanging and timeless truth (p. 299), and their struggle was to not only defeat evil, but “usher in an era in which their religion dominates (p.300).  Religious peacemakers understood their faith as a means to an end, “enlightenment, truth, or spiritual fulfillment (p. 300).

 Religiously justified violence, in part, is based in a sense of a conflict, even a cosmic conflict with great importance and consequence. As Juergensmeyer notes, “When these cosmic battles are conceived as occurring on the human plane, they result in real acts of violence" (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p. 10).  The perception of a cosmic struggle with religious soldiers fighting evil thus demonizes opponents (Juergensmeyer, 2004c, p. 7-9) and serves to absolutize conflict (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p, 242). Religions, like states, are most prone to violence when they make such absolutist claims (Auston, Kranock, Oommen, p. 2003; Juergensmeyer, 2004b, p. 2; Caldwell, online). Cosmic importance allows religion to spiritualizes violence (Juergensmeyer, 2004b, p. 3; 2004b, p.2) and provide moral justification for violence (Juergensmeyer, p. xi, 2000; Juergensmeyer, 2004a, p. 7).

 As Wellman and Tukuno note, “religion provides points of moral, social, and political legitimatizing that are independent of typical social norms” (Wellman and Tukuno, 2004, p. 292); can undercut moral norms (Martin, 2001, p. 31) and even supplant them (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 294).  With a claim to ultimate authority with moral absolutes, religion challenges and even contests political legitimacy and secular authority (Hall, p.11)  As Kierkegaard‘s put it, it is the teleological suspension of the ethical (Martin, 2001, p. 35) referring to the situation where moral norms are set aside in consideration of perceived higher prerogatives. Religion, in this sense provides political identity and license to ideologies (Juergensmeyer, p. xi, 2000).  Sayyid Qutb, author of This Religion of Islam, takes this even further by arguing that the divisions of humanity were basically religious and religious war is the only morally sanctified arena for killing (Juergensmeyer, p. 83, 2000).

 Implicit in this notion is the understanding that violence is part of the divine plan in the eschatological cosmic battle between good and evil and God and Satan.  As Juergensmeyer, (2000, p. xi), notes “strains of violence can be seen in the deepest levels of religious imagination” Martin quoting Burkert, identifies one of these important strain as sacrificial killing, which “is the basic experience of the sacred (Martin, 2001, p. 33).  Religiously justified violence suggests there are ties between the sacred and the violent (Martin, 2001, p. 32). One of these ties is in the notion of sacrifice, found in many religions. Sacrifice, from the Latin to make holy, transforms killing into a positive act (Juergensmeyer 2000, p. 170). The concept of "sacrifice" plays a pivotal role in the entire Bible. The Old Testament theme of animal sacrifice has fulfillment in New Testament theology, specifically the theory of atonement, which claims that the divine plan required that Jesus give his life for the higher good of salvation and redemption. In Christian theology, the doctrine of atonement is the highest positive act of killing, because Jesus dies as a sacrifice for all.  Elsewhere, the Bible contains many elements that suggest that violence was part of the divine plan. Many core stories in the Bible reflect violence from the hand of God, to include the plagues brought on Egypt, conquest of Canaan, and genocide directed against other tribes (Ariarajah, 2003). Although in other places in the Old Testament, there are affirmations that God cares for the aliens (Deut. 10: 18; Ps. 146: 9) as well as other nations (Isa. 19:20-25), some of whom at the time where historic enemies of Israel (Egypt and Assyria). Or, in another way to look at it, the hated and despised outgroups are still recipients of the God of Israel’s care.  

In this sense, the New Testament provides us with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Luke 10:25-37, a lawyer quoted the Mosaic Law, saying that one is to love God and one's neighbor as oneself. He asked Jesus "...who is my neighbor?" Jesus then told the parable of the Good Samaritan -- a non-Hebrew who helped an injured Hebrew. The Samaritans were despised by Jews at the time, specifically seen as impure. The message of the parable is that every member of the human race is one's neighbor.

The notion of sacrifice serves to sacralize violence. Violence made sacred takes on a symbolic aspect, thus providing another link between religion and violence (Juergensmeyer, 2004a, p. 4; Juergensmeyer, 2000, p. 128) and a key to understanding how religion contributes to ethnic conflict. “When religion sacralizes the quest for political autonomy, ethnonationalist leaders find a powerful justification for engaging in violent conflict against trivial ethnic groups” (Appleby, 2000, p. 60).  As Hund notes, tribalism is a form of ethnicity, (p. 33) and as Weber claimed, “Behind all ethnic diversities there is somehow naturally the notion of the chosen people” (p. 305). Religious violence then is functional as it facilitates and encourages tribalism. Although Kurth (p. 282) documents socioeconomic differences alone provide a good explanation for many of the ethnic conflicts of the past decade.  Complicating the relationship between ethnicity and religion is the fact that often religion is ethnicity (P. 284).  At one level, as theologian William McComish noted (online), "Religion is part of the identity by which one ethnic group sets itself against one another."  In the years between 1945-1960 fully one half of the world civil wars were ethnoreligious (Appleby, 2000, p. 58). While “modernist theory sees religion the root cause of ethnic conflict” it could be argued that religion is just an independent variable often used to buttress and provide justification for conflict  (Kurth, p. 291).

 Isolated from ethnicity and nationalism, the link between religion and violence is decreased (Austin, Kranock and Oommen, 2003). When religion is ethnified and connected with state, nation or ethnicity, others are perceived as outsiders, and the potential for violence greatly increases (Austin, Kranock and Oommen, 2003). In many of the ethnic conflicts, religion has “amounted to little more than the rituals and customs forming the core traditions” of a community (Kurth, 2001, p. 293). Ethnifying religion and sacralizing conflict provides multiple benefits that are functional for a group.  The increased political use of such terms as "theology of war," "righteous empire," and an American "mission" and "divine appointment" to "rid the world of evil" Wallis (2004) are evidence of a tendency to “domesticate the divine” and thus make God our tribal or national deity (Holland, 2002, p. 473).

Adding religion to conflict provides functional benefits. As Eric Gans notes “organized conflict is a “primal form of human activity” (Juergensmeyer, p. 172, 2000). “Fighting is universal among animal species. It cannot be regarded as abnormal or pathological. Species that have fought have survived. Those which did not fight, because they lacked the trait of aggression, have perished” (Hurd, p. 30). “Aggression, no less than sexuality, is indispensable to the survival of every species” (p.30). Pierce (1999) writes that "Psychological mechanisms have their origins deep in the shadows of our ancestral past (p. 843)"  The ancestral past for the most part was "…the highly social clan life of mobile hunter-gatherer existence" (Nicholson, 1999).  Under the driving force of our ancestral psychology, we create institutional structures, social relations, and patterns of socialization which have forms and functions designed to serve our needs" (Nicholson, 1997).  Religious structures, along with other social organizations, provide benefits of ingroup contingent altruism to serve the needs of social living and facilitate cohesive social interaction. Primatologist Frans de Wall (2002) cites the work of entomologist David Wilson who compares religion “to insect societies: harmonious and cooperative on the inside, intolerant on the outside.” In this sense, organized religions function as a group and that group solidarity evolved as a function of group selection. As Wilson notes, “There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose (Wilson).  Research has shown that religious communities gain identity through conflict and tension with outgroups (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p.  292). “Conflict, in this sense, is functional (Coser, 1956; Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 294) and helps maintain boundaries (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 292).  It is possible then that religious conflict has some roots in human nature. In this sense, religious violence has, (to borrow how Hurd understood war), “phylogenetic (evolutionary) as well as ontogenetic (cultural) origins” (Hurd, p. 29).

  Sherif demonstrated that arbitrarily dividing individuals in groups can foster ingroup bias and outgroup hostility (Alexander, 1998). We could only expect that when societies are differentiated along a single primary categorization, such as ethnicity or religion (Brewer, 1999) that some hostility would exist, also serving as a form of boundary maintenance and providing a clear concept of social identity and belonging (Tajfel (1972, p, 292).  Research has shown that the boundaries of religion provide and mobilize individual and group identify but also are areas of hostility (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 292; Martin, 2001, p, 34).  In line with Realistic Conflict Theory of intergroup relations (LeVine and Campbell, 1972: Sherif and Sherif, 1953), the reciprocal relationship between ingroup cohesion and outgroup hostility may be limited to conditions in which groups are in competition over physical resources or political power. Boundary maintenance may be not only a way of maintaining group identity, but also mobilizing and motivating group members in competition with other groups (over resources and power). Interestingly, research has shown that American churches that grow are not those who separate from culture (fundamentalists) or those who accommodate (liberals) that grow; it is those who engage in conflict and competition (Wellman and Tokuno, 2004, p. 292).  Religion provides desired moral justification, increased group cohesion, and strengthened identify.  Although, in the final analysis, it must be admitted that the dynamics of practical religion interacting with secular, nationalistic, ethnic, and political elements means religious behavior cannot be predicted on the basis of group affiliation (Appleby, 2000, p. 56).

We are brought back to the paradox that religion functionally provides benefits to individuals, groups, and society. On the one hand, every major religion claims to seek peace and support tolerance; yet religious actors find within religion justification and support for violent acts. Theorists provide some distinction to understand this duality.  Appleby distinguishes between a strong religion and a weak religion. A religion is strong, first of all, if its institutions are well developed and secure and its adherents “literate” in its doctrinal and moral teachings (Appleby, 2000, p. 77). A “weak” religion is one in which the people retain meaningful contact only with vestiges of the broader religious worldview (Appleby, p. 2000, p. 77) those “faith communities that are chronically vulnerable to manipulation by external agents” (p.58). Weak religion then is ripe for manipulation and misuse. Recently reported (Brandon, 2005) in the media is the story of how an Islamic judge in Yemeni has engaged al-Qaida members in a dialog over the teachings of the Quran on violence and killing, with the stated premise “if you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Quran, then we will join you in your struggle. But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."  Two years and 364 prisoners later, the judge has a 90 percent success rate and none have left to fight anywhere.  The judge cites verses such as "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entirely. And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely."  In this sense, the judge is combating a form of weak Islam by making it strong.  While anti-terrorism experts doubted this tactic would work, others, like Croatian Theologian and Pastor Miroslav Volf (2003, p. 39) argues if faith is reduced to a cultural resource it results in religiously legitimized and inspired violence.

 Another researcher of religious violence also supports the notion that “the best way to counter religious extremism or manipulation of religion is with strengthened, more authentic religion, not weakened religion” (Appleby, 2000, p. 76). It seems paradoxical, that “religion is our best hope” (Caldwell, online) in addressing the paradox of religious violence.

 Galtung (1997) breaks religion down into two other basic categories, hard and soft. Hard religions basically are seen as having a monotheistic transcendent deity with chosen people and as well as a notion of a Satan, who also has chosen people.  Hard religions are also universalistic and singular, meaning they are for all people and they are the only path.   Soft religions are understood as having polytheistic immanent gods with no Satan. Soft religions are pluralistic and do not understand themselves to be the only path.  A soft religion is understood as “compassionate, reaching out horizontally to everybody, to all life, to the whole world without ifs and buts, reservations and exceptions.” Nepstad (2004, p. 97), interpreting Juergensmeyer (2000), uses a similar terminology of hard and soft, but apply it within a particular religion, with hard religions requiring sacrifice, and a non compromising stance with secular instructions, while soft religions are seen as weakened accommodating versions of the true faith. In common terminology from the Christian tradition, we might refer to hard religionists as fundamentalists. Mahmud Abouhalima, one of the accused world trade center bombers, the president of Egypt was not really Muslim, since he watered down Islamic law (Juergensmeyer, p. 69, 2000), or softened it. This sort of “fundamentalism defines outsiders to include lukewarm, compromising, or liberal coreligionists as well as people or institutions of other or no religious faith” (Hall, 2001, p. 94).

 Aside from the soft and hard distinction within any particular religion, the belief in monotheism, universality, and singularity is positively linked with increased religious violence (Demerath and Straight, 1997; Gross, 1999; Galtung).   Huntington documents that there has been 1400 years of conflict and struggle between Christianity and Islam and places the conflict in the fact they both are monotheistic and universalistic, meaning they cannot tolerate other deities and they understand themselves to be the one true faith for all humanity (1996, p. 209-11). Along with monotheistic and universalistic can be added having a missionary imperative (Gross, 1999).  As Holland (p. 470-1) claims the religious based violence in Kaduna, Nigeria that claimed 3,000 lives was initiated by Islamic fundamentalists who sought to impose Sharia or theocratic Islamic Law, but it could also be a result of very human group dynamic factors, within two monotheistic and exclusivist religions, magnified by conflict over resources (people and power). 

 As Huntington (1996) suggests, there is a current clash of civilizations in which religiously based violence is playing a significant role . As noted earlier, sacralizing conflict, spiritualizing violence and tribalizing God with the backdrop of cosmic duality and absolute claims greatly increase the potential for violence. Also linked positively with religious violence is purity.  Notions of purity are behind concepts of ethnic cleansing and serve as a form of strict boundary maintenance against other groups as pollution or being defiled is what defines purity (Moore, 2000). Those who desire purity desire a social and cultural system with fortified boundaries (Hall, 2001, p. 87).  These boundaries, as noted before, provide a sense of meaning and identity as well as group cohesion. Hanson notes that every society has systems of purity and that they “provide the society with meaning, orientation, and maps of behavior and belonging.  Specifically, Hanson addresses purity in ancient Near Eastern societies (to include Israel and Judea), Hanson writes that “Judeans increased their concern for purity during and after the Babylonian Exile (598-539 BCE) when purity regulations were codified, seen especially in the book of Leviticus .”

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