Religions and War

Author: Timothy A. McElwee, Ph.D.

Originally published at Peace and Conflict Monitor on 02/23/2005

Introduction

According to the World Conference on Religion and Peace of the roughly six billion people on earth, five billion consider themselves to be members of a religious community. Religions have been used for centuries as a pretext to foment war and religion is also understood as the basis for attempting to build the peaceable kingdom.   It has been described as the most powerful and pervasive force on earth, yet the study of religions and war is often over-looked by peace scholars.  Such inquiries could expand opportunities to enhance under-utilized means of achieving conflict transformation in war-torn societies through an assessment of three key questions: (1) what means are employed, and how extensive is the manipulative use of religion in generating support for armed conflict?  (2) What are the prospects for achieving inter-religious peace?  (3) What positive roles have religious peacemakers played in the past in pursuit of conflict transformation, and how might these methods prove to be effective in the future? 

We need look no further than the so-called war on terrorism to quickly assess the deadly effects of merging religious rhetoric with political ambitions.  Both sides in the conflict appropriate religious symbols and language in calling their adherents to battle.  In his highly acclaimed book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, Mahmood Mamdani, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist, identifies several striking parallels between militant Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden and U.S. President W. Bush.  Mamdani notes that both adversaries:

• are veterans of the Cold War who were, at one time, on the same side in opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan;
• are informed by highly ideological worldviews, articulated through self-righteous, highly religious-political language; 
• employ religious language of good and evil and demonize adversaries as terrorists;
• deny the possibility of a middle ground and instead employ language of no compromise, stating: either you are with us or you are against us;
• primarily seek justice as revenge, and nurture a spirit of perpetual revenge;
• practice a form of collective punishment that refuses to distinguish between the guilty target and the innocent victim.  Instead, both demonstrate a callous disregard for what military strategists coldly refer to as collateral damage.

Both men adopt stirring religious rhetoric while addressing their faithful adherents, but it must be noted that they also unabashedly assert their political goals as well.  Bush has proclaimed that the fundamental objective of the war on terrorism is to secure our nation, while bin Laden has boldly declared of his efforts: We bled Russia for ten years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

We are continuing in the same policy to make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy.“

Towards a Rationale for the Study of Religions and War

The study of religions and war is somewhat inchoate, yet for many years scholars have noted the important role religion plays in national, ethnic and international conflicts. Many have recently pointed to the use and abuse of religious symbolism by politically motivated leaders who employ religious language as a means of generating support for purportedly righteous causes. Some have noted the sad irony that the same sacred texts that inspire selfless acts of great compassion are at the same time effectively used by religious militants to incite holy wars. We have become increasingly aware that when
conflicts are couched in religious and moral language, followers often quickly and enthusiastically fall in line—many willing to make ultimate sacrifices—to fight on God’s behalf, or at least on God’s side as defined by their leaders. Whether such political leaders are sincere in espousing religiously-imbued rhetoric or whether they are simple demagogues, the approach clearly works. It works to a great extent because it seems that many people, no matter what their political leanings, prefer to reduce complex socioeconomic, or political conflicts into a zero-sum “values game” of right and wrong.

Because life is construed as easier this way, many remain vulnerable to the appeal of leaders who are able to convincingly present the world as a battle of good versus evil. Religious rhetoric frequently disguises actual motivations for recourse to war. For example, Stephen Zunes,5 among others, has argued persuasively that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has less to do with the alleged threats of terrorism or political Islam, as it does with the perceived threat posed by Saddam Hussein to US hegemony in the geopolitically critical Middle East. Neither can Iraq’s enormous oil reserves fully explain the US intervention. Rather, as Mamdani has perceptively observed, “Iraq’s real significance is political.”6

Israeli major-general Ya’akov Amidor, as cited by Mamdani, provides a blunt appraisal of these objectives when he writes: “Iraq is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is the Middle East, the Arab world and the Muslim world. Iraq will be a first step in this direction; winning the war against terrorism means structurally changing the entire area.”7

However, while many global conflicts may actually pertain more closely to US imperial ambition and those who resist it, or to strife between rich and poor nations, governmental and nongovernmental leaders frequently justify their objectives through liberal doses of religious symbolism and passionate declarations regarding the righteousness of their cause. Thus, the misappropriation of religion, as well as sincere religious motivations to engage in war, are phenomena that must be reckoned with by peace scholars and practitioners.

Religion: Determinant or Misused Tool of War?

The roots of a great deal of the contemporary discourse on religion and war dates to the post Cold War article The End of History? by Francis Fukuyama.8 No sooner had the Soviet Union faded from view than Fukuyama triumphantly declared that Western liberalism had conquered all other ideologies. In short order, he argued, all nation-states worldwide, as if on the wheels of historical inevitability, would follow suit and adopt  Western liberalism as the “final form of human government.” Although Muslims had previously been accused of resisting the forces of modernization, Fukuyama graciously concluded that the Islamic world also has the intellectual capacity to embrace and develop Western liberalism. Samuel Huntington shared in the celebration of the US as the sole remaining superpower and victor in the Cold War, but he did not share Fukuyama’s sanguine assessment of world order through Western liberalism. Instead, Huntington argued in his article, The Clash of Civilizations?9 that the world stood on the verge of a series of national and international conflicts due to pervasive and growing antagonisms between civilizations. China, as a rising economic power on the world stage, is described by Huntington as a potential threat to Western liberalism, as is the Islamic faith.

Grand theories such as Fukuyama’s and Huntington’s that forecast inevitable conflicts between sweeping categorizations of humanity such as those presumed to be fought between the “Western world” and the “Islamic world” have been roundly criticized. Many have noted, e.g., that such theories over-emphasize the role of religion as a major determinant of war by seriously discounting, or simply ignoring, numerous other cultural forces such as economic or political dynamics. Comments by US President George W. Bush certainly lend credence to theories that identify religious forces as preeminent
determinants of war, but multivalent theories provide much more revealing etiologies of war. That is, although George W. Bush proudly boasts of the manner in which his Christian faith informs his politics,10 even Bush would not claim that his faith is the sole determining factor undergirding his policy directives. Similarly, the belief systems of faithful Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist governmental or nongovernmental leaders may well inform their political judgment, but other dynamics such as political expediency, economic objectives, or personal traits such legacy aspirations, may play much more decisive roles.11

There are therefore relatively few conflicts that can properly be defined as exclusively religious in origin. Other important social forces—political, economic, cultural—are nearly always at work when war is waged. However, it is helpful to note illustrative cases in which religion has played a significant causal role. Peace scholar Luc Reychler has compiled an impressive list of 24 conflicts “with a religious background.”12 His inventory moves from the 1948 Buddhist vs. Christian conflict in Burma, to the 1992
Hindu vs. Muslim dispute in India. He traces not only inter-religious conflicts such as these examples, but also identifies conflicts between religious organizations and governments.13 To better understand how such religiously-based conflicts emerge, and to assess how religion is used to incite war, it is necessary to engage in careful analysis of the political use of religious rhetoric. An insightful and accessible text that sheds a great deal of light on these and related questions is Charles Kimball’s When Religion Becomes Evil.14 As an ordained Baptist minister, grandson of Jewish immigrants and a Harvard-trained specialist in comparative religions, the author is well qualified to assess the role of religion in our increasingly troubled and interdependent world.

Kimball identifies what he refers to as five “warning signs” that religion is being used for corrupt purposes. He begins by describing the dangers of absolute truth claims, i.e., the  belief that what is right for oneself is right for everyone. For example, having adopted the logic, “if ‘X’ is true, ‘Y,’ by definition, is false,” some extremist Christians assert that all faith traditions other than their own are false religions. Blind obedience occurs when religious followers set aside their intelligence and unquestioningly follow a religious leader. The 1978 mass suicide in “Jonestown” Guiana in which 900 followers of the Rev. Jim Jones took their lives is a tragic example. In pursuit of the quest to establish the ideal time, faithful adherents are encouraged to bring about promised better times by achieving prescribed earthly objectives. A case in point was the 1995 sarin gas attacks in Japan by members of the Aum Shinryko sect. A particularly ominous warning sign is captured in the assertion that the end justifies any means. Representing the polar opposite perspective of peace activist A.J. Muste who declared, “there is no way to peace, peace is the way,” followers of this religious conviction conclude that even exceedingly violent acts are justified in order to bring about results they consider ordained by God (or the Divine however conceived). Examples include those who murder physicians who perform abortions, or the Muslim extremists who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The final example
Kimball cites is that of declaring holy wars or crusades. In contrast to the teachings of the Just War tradition—which primarily sanctions defensive wars—proponents of holy war conclude that attacking others is sanctioned by God and that their violent behavior is considered righteous in the eyes of God. As noted above, both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden can be described as examples of such thinking.

The Dangers of Blending Religion and Politics

Soon after the tragic events of 9/11, US syndicated columnist Ann Coulter revealed her proclivity to embrace many of Kimball’s warning signs, and by so doing dramatically flamed the fires of inter-religious hostility. Coulter adamantly declared of those presumed to be responsible for the attacks: “We don’t need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”15 Attempts to convert Afghani and Iraqi victims of US interventions to Christianity notwithstanding, President Bush has seemingly followed this counsel quite closely. Therefore, any discussion of religions and war today must take into account the roots of the unlawful US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These interventions and subsequent occupations can be traced to the initiatives of previous US presidents who used political Islam as a proxy in waging the Cold War. Five months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, US President Jimmy Carter ordered the financing and authorized the training of Afghan mujahideen forces. Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, greatly expanded this funding and approved extensive CIA training of Islamic militants, proudly declaring his hope that Afghanistan would become “the Soviet’s Vietnam.” Through US support, the Pakistani CIA equivalent, the InterServices Intelligence Agency, recruited and trained some 35,000 Islamic militants from 43 countries to wage war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Acting on behalf of the CIA, Osama bin Laden was recruited to the Afghan jihad by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence.16 As Arundhati Roy has interestingly observed, “bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI.”17 The Afghani resistance, funded and professionally trained by the US to wage war against the Soviets, is said to have turned the tide in the Cold War. If this true—as many have argued is the case—in light of the events of 9/11 and the subsequent quagmire in Iraq, with Mamdani we must ask: “At what price was the Cold War won?”18 Clearly, the price has been huge, and those who have paid the highest price are the Afghani and Iraqi people. In Afghanistan, the ten-year war against the Soviets exacted an enormous toll.

With a population at the time of approximately 20 million people, one million were killed in the war, another 1.5 million were wounded, and five million more became refugees.19 As a callous indicator of the blatant disregard the US government has for the people of Iraq, the Pentagon refuses to attempt to measure the human cost of the current war.

However, estimates by The Lancet, the respected British medical journal, indicated that the number of Iraqi civilian casualties stands at 100,000 since the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003. Beyond the staggering financial cost of the war ($200 billion and rising), the 1,400 US deaths and the more than 10,000 wounded US soldiers, a critically important but frequently unstated cost of the Afghan jihad and the war in Iraq is the fact that the United States today is much less secure than it was prior to these interventions.

As Mamdani astutely explains, the US faces this tremendous cost after having won the Cold War to a great extent due to the fact that, “the United States and its allies created, trained, and sustained an infrastructure of terror, international in scope, free of any effective state control, wrapped up in the language of religious war.”20 The proclaimed initial purpose of this effort, i.e., to create an Islamic liberation movement, instead produced an infrastructure of terror that used “Islamic symbols to tap into Islamic networks and communities.”21 Never before had right-wing Islamists possessed the means (primarily through funding and weaponry) to organize an effective offensive military force. Moreover, as Mamdani concludes, “The real damage the CIA did was not the providing of arms and money but the privatization of information about how to produce and spread violence—the formation of private militias—capable of creating terror.”22

Analysts within the CIA and elsewhere have explained the damaging “boomerang” effects of these and other US interventions. Former CIA agent Chalmers Johnson has popularized a concept that illustrates this phenomenon. The title of his book, Blowback, 23 is based on a term that was first used by the CIA in 1954 in reference to the US-led overthrow of the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The term refers to the “unintended consequences” of US covert international activities. At the time some CIA operatives feared that the US could experience some form of blowback due to this intervention into Iranian affairs. In due course, the US dealt with the harsh realities of these unintended consequences when in 1979 a total of 52 US embassy personnel were held hostage for 444 days by followers of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. Many people today consider the expanding insecurity of the United States to be yet another example of blowback. For example, in 2001, the CIA estimated that al Qaeda was operating in 45 countries; today the agency estimates that al Qaeda is operating in 60 countries. In fact, the US invasion of Iraq has greatly advanced the mission of bin Laden and his colleagues. These developments were recently summarized by Peter Bergen, recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on international terrorism. Berger recently stated:

What [the US has] done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure that bin Laden has long predicted was the United States’ long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a “defensive” jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It’s hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism.24

A similar conclusion was recently reiterated by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the CIA director’s “think tank.” The 119-page report, based on the analysis of 1,000 US and foreign experts, concludes that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of “professionalized terrorists.” NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings stated that Iraq has become “a magnet for international terrorist activity.”25 Another consequence of the war seldom acknowledged by the White House, but of increasing concern for many US policy makers, is the enormous reduction in US credibility within the international community. While seeking to hold other nation-states accountable for the rule of law, the Bush administration has insisted on exempting the United States from international legal standards. These are not subtle double standards; they are not overlooked by the world community. Nor is there credible evidence that many within the world community have confidence in US global leadership. A January 2005 survey conducted by BBC World Service, in which 22,000 persons were interviewed in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Europe, found that 58% of the respondents feel George W. Bush will have a “negative impact on global peace and security.”26 As Mamdani has suggested, eventually US policy makers must accept the fact that “America cannot occupy the world. It has to learn to live in it.”27 Peace scholars, activists and religiously-motivated peacemakers have a vital role to play in alerting the international community to the deadly consequences of manipulating religious forces for the purposes of destructive, opportunistic ventures.

The Legacy and Promise of Religious Peacemaking

Blaise Pascal, a devout Catholic, once noted: “People never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” While this may be true, and while religious rhetoric is clearly used to sound the battle cry for egregious self-serving violent behavior, we would be remiss if we failed to also point out the many positive roles religion has played, and is playing, in ameliorating social strife, in reducing economic injustice and in creatively transforming conflict in war-torn societies. An important initial focus in this regard is the urgency of enhancing inter-religious peace. It was Swiss theologian Hans Küng who clarified the importance of this endeavor when he stated nearly 15 years ago: “There will be no world peace without peace between religions.” Much has been done in this regard; much remains to be achieved. A starting point for this much-needed inter-religious dialogue is captured in Charles Kimball’s  simple yet sagacious comment: “Experience makes plain that my experience of God, my human view of truth, does not begin to exhaust the possibilities.”28 Thus, at the heart of the challenge is the need to accept the fundamental truth that human beings have very limited knowledge of the Divine. Such humility, integrated with sufficient amounts of mutual respect, open-minded and non-defensive dialogue, and an emphasis on inclusive acceptance rather than rigid theologies of exclusion, can greatly advance the prospects for inter-religious peace. A second and equally important emphasis is that of prioritizing orthopraxy over orthodoxy. Ethics should trump doctrine; how we live our faith should be more important than specific religious tenets. These convictions have been emphasized by many spiritual leaders and peacemakers, from Gandhi’s concept and practice of satyagraha (literally “holding firmly to truth”), to Martin Luther King’s entreaty to learn from “the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”29 Two of the most promising current efforts underway are the Decade to Overcome Violence, a cooperative enterprise launched and facilitated by the World Council of Churches
(WCC), and the work of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. It is important to note that while the WCC initiative is grounded in a Christian ethic, it is also intended to advance inter-religious peace as well. The Decade to Overcome Violence seeks to achieve the following objectives:

• To work together for peace, justice, and reconciliation at all levels – local, regional, and global. To embrace creative approaches to peace building which are consonant with the spirit of the gospel.
• To interact and collaborate with local communities, secular movements, and people of other living faiths towards cultivating a culture of peace.
• To walk with people who are systematically oppressed by violence, and to act in solidarity with all struggling for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation.
• To repent together for our complicity in violence, and to engage in theological reflection to overcome the spirit, logic, and practice of violence.30

The World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) arose from the Inter-Religious Conference on Peace that was convened in New Delhi in 1968. Two years after the conference, the WCRP was established for the express purpose of advancing multireligious cooperation among a network of religious people dedicated to peacemaking.

The WCRP now operates in more than 50 countries and has recently embarked on a new initiative designed to mobilize religious communities in troubled regions around the world to engage them in building more peaceful and just societies.31 Beyond these important efforts intended to achieve greater respect and harmony among the world’s religions, several recent publications have emphasized the vital role of religious peacemaking. An early text of this sort was Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson’s 1994 text, Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft.32

The contributors to this volume convincingly demonstrate through reference to six case studies that religion has been a powerful means of transforming conflict. They comment that through cooperative ventures with governmental authorities, and as an alternative source of information and creative energy for foreign policy formation, religion holds great potential for the future. The book concludes with a special emphasis upon four major world religions, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, and the vital roles each of these religious communities can play in future peacemaking efforts. Previously cited peace scholar, Luc Reychler, has provided an instructive and encouraging assessment of religious peacemakers in an article published in 1997. In addition to the aforementioned inventory of 24 conflicts “with a religious background,” Reychler concludes his analysis with a helpful summary of the primary strengths religious peacemakers bring to the table.

Among these are the fact that religious peacemakers are in the field and therefore have the capacity to mobilize people. Another is seen in the spiritual values and character strength possessed by many religious peacemakers that enable them to “cultivate attitudes of forgiveness and conciliation.”33 R. Scott Appleby, a professor of history at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, has added a useful addition to this literature through his book, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation.34 Noting the importance of multivalent approaches to peacemaking, and with an affirmative nod to John Paul Lederach’s emphasis on the elicitive approach to peacemaking,35 Appleby clarifies many of the important roles religious peacemakers have played in conflict settings. Among these various roles are the following: “preventive diplomacy, education and training, election monitoring, conflict mediation, nonviolent protest and advocacy for structural reform, and withdrawing or providing moral legitimacy for a government in times of crisis.”36 Martin Luther King once clarified that churches are not intended to be “the masters of the state, nor the servants of the state, but the conscience of the state.”37 Appleby similarly notes the helpful “social critic” role religious peacemakers have played in calling governmental officials to account for “unjust and abusive policies.”38 Finally, Chadwick F. Alger has provided a useful article that provides an evaluation of these religious resources by way of encouraging further research on, and the use of, religion as “peace tool.”39

Conclusion

Readers of the Peace and Conflict Monitor may be aware of the manner in which religions are used to incite violence and to establish peace, but the vast majority of the global citizenry is not. Educational institutions world-wide, international peace and justice organizations, humanitarian NGOs, and the United Nations itself could begin to turn the tide away from the corrupt use of religion in social and political conflict, and advocate for the positive roles of religious actors through expanded efforts to raise consciousness about these phenomena. If we believe—as Kofi Annan has suggested— that education is “peacebuilding by another name,” it behooves all who are committed to building more peaceful and just societies to expand our understanding of the impact of religion, this powerful and pervasive social force, in our troubled yet hopeful world.

References

1. Kimball, Charles. 2002. When Religion Becomes Evil. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

2. Mamdani, Mahmood. 2004. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Press.

3. Mamdani: 217, 254, 257.

4. From the text of his speech broadcast by Aljazeera, November 1, 2004. Available through the Aljazeera
website: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage.

5. Zunes, Stephen. 2003. Tinderbox: US Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism. Monroe, ME:
Common Courage Press.

6. Mamdani: 201.

7. Mamdani: 201.

8. Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. The End of History? National Interest: 3-18.

9. Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72: 22-49.

10. For example, Bush recently declared that he did not see “how you can be President without a relationship with the Lord.” Cited in Gwynne Dyer, Democracy – It’s Not God’s Gift. The New Zealand Herald, January 26, 2005.

11. In the 1960 US presidential election, fears of a Kennedy presidency were widespread based to a great
extent on the contention that John Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, would obediently follow the dictates of the Pope such that the US government would eventually become the puppet of the Vatican. Few would
subscribe to such hypotheses today.

12. Reychler, Luc. 1997. Religion and Conflict. International Journal of Peace Studies 2:19-38.

13. Reychler: 22.

14. Kimball, Charles. 2002. When Religion Becomes Evil. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

15. Coulter, Ann. 2001. This is War: We Should Invade Their Countries. National Review, 13 September.

16. Mamdani: 132.

17. Quoted in Mamdani: 234.

18. Mamdani: 120.

19. Mamdani: 252.

20. Mamdani: 234.

21. Mamdani: 130.

22. Mamdani: 138, emphasis author’s.

23. Johnson, Chalmers. 2000. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. New York:
Henry Holt and Co., LLC.

24. Cited by US Senator Barbara Boxer in her opening statement before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ confirmation hearings of then Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice. The New
York Times, January 18, 2005.

25. Priest, Dana. Iraq: New Terror Breeding Ground. The Washington Post, January 14, 2005: A1.

26. BBC News World Edition. January 19, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/

27. Mamdani: 260.

28. Kimball: 209.

29. Excerpted from a speech delivered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a meeting of Clergy and
Laity Concerned. The Riverside Church, New York, NY., April 4, 1967.

30. World Council of Churches website: http://www2.wcc-coe.org/dov.

31. See the World Conference on Religion and Peace website for additional information: http://www.wcrp.org/.

32. Johnston, Douglas and Sampson, Cynthia, eds. 1994. Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft.
New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

33. Reychler: 35-36.

34. Appleby, R. Scott. 1999. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation. Boston: Rowan and Littlefield.

35. Lederach coined this term to refer to the importance of peacemakers entering into conflict settings with humility and a balanced respect for all sides in the dispute. He stresses further that, rather than imposing external, prescriptive solutions to conflicts, peacemakers using an elicitive approach focus energy on the participants and their relationships; they emphasize the participant’s cultural contexts and shared history, as well as their hopes for building a better society together. For more information on John Paul Lederach’s elicitive approach, see, e.g., his volumes: Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, 1995. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press; Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, 1997. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press; The Journey Toward Reconciliation, 1999. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press; and/or The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, 2003. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

36. Appleby: 211.

37. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963. Sermon: The Strength to Love.

38. Appleby: 213.

39. Alger, Chadwick F. 2002. Religion as a Peace Tool. The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 1:95-109.