The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern ConflictThe idea that religion has a dangerous tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies, and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of religion to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East. William T. Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. A growing body of scholarly work explores how the category 'religion' has been constructed in the modern West and in colonial contexts according to specific configurations of political power. Cavanaugh draws on this scholarship to examine how timeless and transcultural categories of 'religion and 'the secular' are used in arguments that religion causes violence. He argues three points: 1) There is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion. What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of political configurations of power; 2) Such a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion as non-rational and prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of Western society; 3) This myth can be and is used to legitimate neo-colonial violence against non-Western others, particularly the Muslim world. |
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absolute absolutist American Appleby Aquinas argues argument attempt beliefs Bossy Buddhism Cambridge Catholic chapter Christian Christopher Hitchens church civil religion claim concept of religion confessional conflict context culture defines religion definition of religion distinction doctrine early modern economic empirical English Civil War essentially Europe example factors faith force France functionalist gion gious Girard Herbert Hick Hindu Hinduism Hitchens Holt holy Huguenot human Ibid idea identified ideologies irrational Islam Jehovah’s Witnesses Juergensmeyer kill Kimball King liberal Lutheran Mark Juergensmeyer Marty Marxism means medieval Muslim world myth of religious nation-state non-Western one’s peace political practices problem Protestant quoted reason Reformation reli religion and violence religious violence religious wars religious-secular rites rituals sacred says scholars secular phenomena secular violence Selengut separate Shinto simply sixteenth social order society symbols term religion theological things tion traditional transhistorical and transcultural University Press wars of religion West Western Wilfred Cantwell Smith worship