The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence

625 Pages·2011·4.33 MB·English

by  Andrew R. Murphy (ed)

The Blackwell Companion
to Religion and Violence
Blackwell Companions to Religion
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The Blackwell Companion
to Religion and Violence
Edited by
Andrew R. Murphy
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
This edition fi rst published 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Blackwell companion to religion and violence / edited by Andrew R. Murphy.
p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to religion ; 42)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9131-9 (hardback)
1. Violence--Religious aspects. I. Murphy, Andrew R., 1967-
BL65.V55B56 2011
205’.697–dc22
2011002516
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs 9781444397697; Wiley Online Library
9781444397710; ePub 9781444397703
Set in 10 on 12.5 pt Photina by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
1 2011
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
Andrew R. Murphy
Part I “Religion” and “Violence”: Defi ning Terms,
Defi ning Relationships 5
1 Religion and Violence: Coming to Terms with Terms 7
John D. Carlson
2 The Myth of Religious Violence 23
William T. Cavanaugh
Part II Disciplinary Perspectives 35
3 Religion and Violence: An Economic Approach 37
Anthony Gill
4 Religion, Identity, and Violence: Some Theoretical Refl ections 50
Aziz Esmail
5 Anthropological Refl ections on Religion and Violence 66
Bettina E. Schmidt
6 Spiritual Devotion and Self-Annihilation: An Evolutionary Perspective 76
Ariel Glucklich
7 The Sociology of Religious Violence 89
Charles Selengut
vi CONTENTS
8 Religion, Law, and Violence 99
David E. Guinn
9 Mediating Religious Violence 112
Jolyon Mitchell
10 Gender in the Production of Religious and Secular Violence 125
Janet R. Jakobsen
11 Explaining Religious Violence: Retrospects and Prospects 137
Hector Avalos
Part III Traditions and Movements, Concepts and Themes 147
12 Christianity and Violence 149
Jonathan Ebel
13 Genesis 34 and the Legacies of Biblical Violence 163
Elliott Horowitz
14 Islam and Violence 183
Beverley Milton-Edwards
15 Religion and Violence in Hindu Traditions 196
Jeffery D. Long
16 Buddhism and Symbolic Violence 211
Bernard Faure
17 Religion, Violence, and Shintō 227
Walter A. Skya
18 Confucian Ethical Action and the Boundaries of Peace and War 237
Don J. Wyatt
19 Violence in Chinese Religious Culture 249
Barend J. ter Haar
20 The Dialectic of Violence in Jainism 263
Christopher Key Chapple
21 Just War and Jihad of the Sword 271
James Turner Johnson
22 Jihad and Martyrdom in Classical and Contemporary Islam 282
David Cook
23 Sacred Terror: The Psychology of Contemporary Religious Terrorism 293
James W. Jones
24 The Transformation of Failure and the Spiritualization of Violence 304
Ian Reader
CONTENTS vii
25 Sacrifi ce and Violence 320
Kathryn McClymond
26 History, Humiliation, and Religious Violence 331
Ellen Posman
27 Reconceptualizing Totalitarianism and Fascism 343
Robert Imre
Part IV Case Studies: Religion and Violence, Past and Present 355
28 Enduring the Sacred Scars of Slavery 357
Yolanda Pierce
29 South Asia: From Colonial Categories to a Crisis of Faith? 367
Yasmin Khan
30 Gender, Religion, and Violence during the Holocaust 379
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
31 Women in the Śāstric Tradition: Colonialism, Law, and Violence 389
Nandini Bhattacharyya-Panda
32 Biblical Metaphors for Interventionism in the Spanish-American War 406
Matthew McCullough
33 Sudan: Religion and Confl ict 417
Jok Madut Jok
34 The Battle for Australia: Salvation and Conquest 424
Marion Maddox
35 Fundamentalist Violence and Women: Iran, Afghanistan, and Algeria 439
Valentine M. Moghadam
36 Anti-Jewish Violence in Late Imperial Russia 451
Robert Weinberg
37 Religion, Pluralism, and Confl icts in the Pacifi c Islands 461
Yannick Fer
38 Ritual Violence and Violent Ritual in Chinese Popular Religion 473
Avron Boretz
39 The Politics of Protestant Violence: Abolitionists and Anti-Abortionists 485
Joel Olson
40 Colonialism and Civil War: Religion and Violence in East Africa 498
Ben Jones
41 Rethinking Religion and Violence in the Middle East 511
Jeroen Gunning
viii CONTENTS
42 Cromwell, Mather, and the Rhetoric of Puritan Violence 524
Andrew R. Murphy
Part V Future Prospects: Beyond Violence? 539
43 Liberation Theology and the Spiral of Violence 541
Thia Cooper
44 Religion and Nonviolence in American History 554
Ira Chernus
45 Religious Peacebuilding 568
María Pilar Aquino
Index 594
Notes on Contributors
Mar í a Pilar Aquino is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University
of San Diego, and is a past Visiting Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School.
She is the author, editor and coeditor of many publications, including her signature
book, Our Cry for Life: Feminist Theology from Latin America (1993) , Reconciliation in a
World of Confl icts , with Luis Carlos Susin (2003); F eminist Intercultural Theology: Latina
Explorations for a Just World , with Maria Jos é Rosado - Nunes (2007), and Religi ó n y vio-
lencia sexual. Pr á cticas interculturales de teolog í a feminista , with Mar í a del Carmen Servitje
(2010).
Hector Avalos is Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, and the author
of Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (2005).
Judith Tydor Baumel - Schwartz is Chair of the Graduate Program in Contemporary
Jewry, Director of the Institute for Religious Zionism, and Associate Professor of Jewish
History at Bar - Ilan University in Ramat - Gan, Israel. She is the author of numerous
books and articles and specializes in topics pertaining to the Holocaust, gender, memory,
State of Israel, and commemoration. Among her books are D ouble Jeopardy: Gender and
the Holocaust (1998), The Bergson Boys and the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy
(2005), and Perfect Heroes: The World War II Parachutists and the Making of Collective
Israeli Memory (2010).
Nandini Bhattacharyya - Panda was formerly Senior Fellow at the Indian Council of
Historical Research, New Delhi and is now Project Fellow at Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. She is currently writing a book on two hill com-
munities (Lepcha and Mangar) of Sikkim and Darjeeling. She is author of A ppropriation
and Invention of Tradition: The East India Company and Hindu Law in Early Colonial Bengal
(2008), and has published a number of articles on colonialism and patriarchy in Bengal
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Avron Boretz is Program Director, United Board (Hong Kong), and works with colleges
and universities in Asia developing programs in interreligious understanding and
peacebuilding. He is the author of G ods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial
Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society (2010).
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
John D. Carlson is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director of
the Center for the Study of Religion and Confl ict at Arizona State University. He is coedi-
tor of the forthcoming. F rom Jeremiad to Jihad : Religion, Violence, and America .
William T. Cavanaugh is Senior Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism
and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. His recent book T he Myth
of Religious Violence (2009) has been translated into French and Spanish.
Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at
Loyola Marymount University. He has published several books on the religions of India,
including K arma and Creativity (1986), N onviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian
Traditions (1993), R econciling Yogas: Haribhadra ’ s Array of Views on Yoga (2003), and
Yoga and the Luminous: Patanjali ’ s Spiritual Path to Freedom (2008). He has edited several
books on religion and ecology, including Hinduism and Ecology (with Mary Evelyn
Tucker, 2000), J ainism and Ecology (2002), and Y oga and Ecology (2009). He serves as
editor for the journal W orldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology .
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder
and is the author of A merican Nonviolence: The History of an Idea (2004).
David Cook is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, specializing
in early Islam, classical apocalyptic literature, contemporary radical Muslim literature
and movements, the study of magic and popular religion and historical astronomy. His
books include S tudies in Muslim Apocalyptic (2003), U nderstanding Jihad (2005), and
Martyrdom in Islam (2007).
Thia Cooper is Associate Professor of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College and
author of C ontroversies in Political Theology: Development or Liberation? (2007).
Jonathan Ebel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University
of Illinois. He is the author of F aith in the Fight: Religion and the American Solider in the
Great War (2010).
Aziz Esmail is a philosopher, with special interest in religion and literature as well as
psychology and human development. He was for many years a lecturer in philosophy
and religion at the University of Nairobi, and was twice visiting scholar with the
Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. At present he serves on
the Board of Governors of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. He has published
in the areas of philosophy and psychiatry, as well as a poetic translation into English,
under the title A Scent of Sandalwood , of medieval Indo - Islamic lyric poetry.
Bernard Faure is Kao Professor of Japanese Religion at Columbia University. His main
publications include Th e Rhetoric of Immediacy (1991), C han Insights and Oversights
(1993), Vi sions of Power (1996), T he Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (1998),
and The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity and Gender (2003). He has also recently pub-
lished in French a book entitled B ouddhismes et violence (2008).