The Ambivalence of the Sacred Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation

by Appleby, Scott R.; Hesburgh, Theodore M.

• ISBN13: 9780847685547
• ISBN10: 0847685543
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-23
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Terrorists and peacemakers may grow up in the same community and adhere to the same religious tradition. The killing carried out by one and the reconciliation fostered by the other indicate the range of dramatic and contradictory responses to human suffering by religious actors. Yet religion's ability to inspire violence is intimately related to its equally impressive power as a force for peace, especially in the growing number of conflicts around the world that involve religious claims and religiously inspired combatants. This book explains what religious terrorists and religious peacemakers share in common, what causes them to take different paths in fighting injustice, and how a deeper understanding of religious extremism can and must be integrated more effectively into our thinking about tribal, regional, and international conflict.

Author Biography

R. Scott Appleby is professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, where he directs the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and serves as a fellow of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: Powerful Medicine	1	(24)
PART ONE: Coming to Terms with Religion
The Growing End of an Argument	25	(32)
Religion's Violent Accomplices	57	(24)
Violence as a Sacred Duty: Patterns of Religious Extremism	81	(40)
Militants for Peace	121	(46)
Reconciliation and the Politics of Forgiveness	167	(40)
PART TWO: The Logic of Religious Peacebuilding
Religion and Conflict Transformation	207	(38)
The Promise of Internal Pluralism: Human Rights and Religious Mission	245	(36)
Ambivalence as Opportunity: Strategies for Promoting Religious Peacebuilding	281	(28)
Notes	309	(80)
Selected Bibliography	389	(18)
Index	407	(18)
About the Carnegie Commission	425	(4)
About the Author	429