Religious Leaders on Peace and Violence

It is a tiresome stereotype launched by "cultured despisers" that "religion" always causes violence. A recent book looks at the more complicated realities: Timothy Sisk, ed., Between Terror and Tolerance: Religious Leaders, Conflict, and Peacemaking (Georgetown U Press, 2011), 280pp.


About this book the publisher tells us:

Civil war and conflict within countries is the most prevalent threat to peace and security in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. A pivotal factor in the escalation of tensions to open conflict is the role of elites in exacerbating tensions along identity lines by giving the ideological justification, moral reasoning, and call to violence. Between Terror and Tolerance examines the varied roles of religious leaders in societies deeply divided by ethnic, racial, or religious conflict. The chapters in this book explore cases when religious leaders have justified or catalyzed violence along identity lines, and other instances when religious elites have played a critical role in easing tensions or even laying the foundation for peace and reconciliation. This volume features thematic chapters on the linkages between religion, nationalism, and intolerance, transnational intra-faith conflict in the Shi'a-Sunni divide, and country case studies of societal divisions or conflicts in Egypt, Israel and Palestine, Kashmir, Lebanon, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Tajikistan.

Of particular interest to Eastern Christians will be the following chapters:

Ch1:  On Nationalism
Ch. 3: On the Maronites of Lebanon
Ch. 5: On Egypt and the Copts