Faith, War, and Violence

by Gabriel R. Ricci

Overview

Faith, War, and Violence analyzes the age-old links between religion and violence perpetrated in the name of God, and the role religion performs in politically infusing the state with romantic spiritualism. The volume examines instances of this phenomenon from ancient Rome to the modern day; it finds that religion-inspired violence is not restricted to Abrahamic faiths or to one geographic region.

The fact that symbolically charged religious violence has destructive consequences is not lost on contributors to Faith, War, and Violence. Among the subjects tackled are: the ideological and religious foundations that inspired the founders of Al-Qaeda and its role in the Arab Spring; the long history of religious conflict in Ireland known as the Troubles; Sikh extremism; and the evolution of the Christian approach to war.

As the contributors demonstrate, in Western societies, the unity of religious fervor and warmongering stretches from Constantine's incorporation of Christian symbols into Roman army flags to slogans like Gott mit uns (God is with us), which appeared on the belt buckles of German soldiers in World War I. In recent years, George W. Bush declared the war on terror a "crusade," and his speechwriter, David Frum, coined the religiously inspired term "Axis of Evil," to describe Iraq and other countries opposing the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138523364
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/15/2017
Series:	Religion and Public Life
Pages:	243
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Gabriel R. Ricci

1.'Abdullah'Azzm The Ideology behind Al-Q'ida
Asaf Maliach

2. The Arab Spring and the Religious Agenda
Jonathan Fine

3. Sikhism, the Seduction of Modernism, and the Question of Violence
Nicholas F. Gier

4. The Catholic Church, Violence, and the Nationalist Struggles in Ireland, 1798 1998
Oliver Rafferty, SJ

5. Responsibility and Limitation: The Early Christian Church and War
Darrell Cole

6. The Medieval Papacy and Holy War: General Crusading Letters and Papal Authority, 1145 1213
Rebecca Rist

7. "Generosity . . . in the Slavery of This Brave Cavalier": Sanctity Honor and Religious Violence in the French Mediterranean
Brian Sandberg

8. Deferral of War: The Religious Sign System of Ritual Violence
Christopher S. Morrissey

9. Martyrs of Liberty: Open-Air Preaching and Popular Violence in Victorian Britain and Ireland
Mark Doyle

10. Moral Injury: A Case Study in the Intersection of Religion and Violence
Kathryn McClymond and Anthony F. Lemieux

11. Marshall McLuhan and the Machiavellian Use of Religious Violence
Grant N. Havers

12. The Trenches of Capernaum, 1914 1918
Yves Pourcher

Contributors