The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence

The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence offers a state-of-the-art overview of this diverse and crucially important subject. This timely volume brings together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars who probe the complex relationship between religion and violence, now and in the past. Media accounts often announce the inherent connections between ‘fanatical’ believers and terroristic violence; but scholars have long recognized that such links are only one small part of a larger and more complex set of interactions. They argue that religious beliefs and practices are just as likely to provide resources for comfort and coping as to encourage violence and carnage. The volume is divided into several major sections: Traditions and Movements, Disciplinary Perspectives, Concepts and Themes, and Case Studies, which explore specific incidences of both religious violence and instances where religion has contributed to the resistance of violence. A concluding section offers insights into the future direction of scholarship in the area. It also includes discussions of the ongoing importance of religion to terrorism, and religious competition and conflict in Africa. Each section offers high-quality, cutting-edge scholarship, as leading authorities seek to make sense of the problematic correlation between these two forces.

Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Andrew R. Murphy Part I “Religion” and “Violence”: Defining Terms, Defining 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 Reflections 50 Aziz Esmail 5 Anthropological Reflections 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 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 25 Sacrifice 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 Conflict 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 Conflicts in the Pacific 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 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