Violence and the World's Religious Traditions: An Introduction

Is religion inherently predisposed to violence? Or has religion been taken hostage by a politics of aggression? The years since the end of the Cold War have shown a noticeable shift in patterns of religious extremism, accentuating the uncomfortable, complex, and oft-misunderstood relationship between religion and violence. The essays in this succinct new volume examine that relationship by offering a well-rounded look at violence as it appears in the world's most prominent religious traditions, exploring Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, Sikh, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, African, and Pacific Island texts and practices.

The essays in Violence and the World's Religious Traditions explore the ways in which specific religions have justified acts of destruction, in history, in scripture, and in the contemporary world. But the collection also offers an investigation of religious symbols and practices, shedding new light on the very nature of religion and confronting the question of how deeply intertwined are violence and faith.

• Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography: The Faith of a Boundary-Breaking Hero
• Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
• Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society)
• Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible And the Quran
• Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
• Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy
• Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence
• Buddhist Warfare
• Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo
• There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)