Is Religious Violence Inevitable? JAMES K. WELLMAN, JR, KYOKO TOKUNO Religion kills. Religion brings peace. What is religion? The past 150 years are strewn with definitional cul-de-sacs in the study of religion in Western academia, in part because religion can never be fully explained and in part because there is no essence of religion that can finally be reified. But it is noteworthy that no definitions have put violence atthe heart of religion. For Edward Tylor, religion isa false explanatory system (Tylor [1871] 1958); for Durkheim, religion isthe social nexus of the group (Durkheim 191) for Clifford Geertz, religion is meaning (Geertz 1973); for Radney Stark, religion isthe terms of exchange with the god or gods (Stark and Finke 12000); for Christian Smith, religion is a moral orientation to life (Smith 2003); for Ninian Smart, religion isan ever-evolving organism with multiple sociocultural dimensions (Smart 1969). {All these strike us as important approximations of religion, but there is something missing in them, We do not provide a full definition of religion, but we suggest that from our work of ‘Westem and Eastern religious traditions, past and present, there are pattems within religion that tend toward conflict and even violence." Thus, our argument isthe following. The symbolic and social boundaries of religion (no matter how fluid or porous) mobilize individual and group ‘dentty in conflict, and sometimes violence, within and between groups. In the post-Cold-War era, a peace dividend appeared on the horizon. It never materialized. ‘To the suprise of many, various religious communities moved into the new cultural and politcal space; they came out of relative obscurity to set cultural and even politcal agendas. We see this in Asia, Aftica, Lain America, and even in the United States, In Chin, indigenous movements such as Falun Gong and the underground Christan churches have met with violent suppression from the Chinese government. In Japan, new religions emerged with alternative worldviews tha in some cases, such as Aum Shinrikyo, adopted violence as a viable means to realize their religious goals (Reader 2000). Inthe Middle East and in Asia, various Islamist groups refuse 10 be intimidated by either the former Soviet Union or the United States Suergensmeyer 2000). The slobal Christian evangelical movement is reshaping the southem hemisphere; evangelical growth has made substantial gains on the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America and has begun to transform the cultural and religious face of Africa (lenkins 2002; Freston 2001). Inthe United Sates, evangelicals determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential election (Green, Rozel, and Wilcox 2003). Theorists of secularization, many of whom are European in origin, looked at the religious ‘world through the blinkered lenses ofthe Cold War (Swatos and Olson 2000). They did not see the power of religion o thrive in places of political and cultural oppression. The political ideologies of the 20th century now appear fragile against the ability of religious movements to inject their ‘demands into the public sphere (Casanova 1994). Inthe post-Cold-War period, a time of great cultural and political transformation, religions have come tothe fore to push thei varied agendas. However, this phenomena is neither new nor should itbe surprising. Indeed, we argue that religion is ideally suited to survive and thrive under difficult circumstance and, in fac, from our review of religious history and traditions, conflict tends to galvanize religious communities rather than Jones Weliman isan Arsstant Profesor, Comparaive Religion Program, Jackson Schoo! of Inersational Sues, Uniersiy of Washington, Box 253650, Seattle, WA 98195-3630, E-mal:jelinan@ washington. [Kyoko Tokuno isan Asinant Professor Comparative Religion Program, Jaskon Schoo of International Shue, Uni- ‘erst of Washington, Bos 353650, Seat, WA 98198-3680. E-mail: okwre@uswashinton eda Journ for the Scent Sty of Religion 43:3 (2004) 291-29622 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION subdue them. Our counterintuitive claim is that religion tends toward greater vitality when itis in tension with surrounding cultures. Modernity has not destroyed religion but rather become & ‘ease study in its resilience. What is behind the buoyancy of religion to thrive despite predictions to the contrary? ‘The symbolic boundaries of religion provide a powerful engine for individual and group identity formation. Religion has always functioned to shape individual and social identities and inspire group formation. The powerful affective events and experiences of religion, embodied in ritual action and mystical practice, formulated through systems of belief and story, have motivated human beings across time and culture. This nexus of experience, practice, and discourse are the core of religion's intemal combustion engine that fuels individual leaders and their groups. It is precisely the power of this energy that creates tension, conflict, and sometimes violence with ‘out-groups. As regards out-groups or more powerful political entities, religion provides points of| moral, social, and political legitimation that are independent of typical social norms, The pattern is historically familiar. The strong communal identities of Jews and early Christians in the first centuries of the Common Era threatened the Roman empire; Muharnmad and his small cadre of followers consolidated a community of the faithful thet united warring tribes and became a dominant power in the Mediterranean and the Middle East; the Buddhist community in medieval China advanced its strategy to safeguard its tradition even as it was repeatedly subjected to state persecution because it was said that it threatened the indigenous cultural heritage and the state's political power (Nomura 1968); Joseph Smith and his family, who provoked and fended off various early persecutions, created a new religion that is now competitive with the growth rates of Christianity and Islam; the Sikhs, against overwhelming odds, rebelled against the Indian government in the 1980s. The symbolic and social building blocks of religion lend to groups, ‘no matter their size, powerful mobilizing energies that are successful in part because they create {ension, produce conflict, and sometimes engender violence against other religious groups, cultural powers, and global empires ‘We argue, therefore, that it is a part of the nature of religious communities to gain their identity through conflict and tension with out-group cultures. Conflict, in this sense, is socially functional (Coser 1956), Identity is galvanized by the degree to which one is against the outsider, the other, whether as a competing religious community or a powerful national regime. Vital religious communities need the internal affective experience of religious transcendence (as a force or power) as well as tension or conflict with other political or cultural forces. It is against these extemal forces tha they portray their purity, as with Protestantism; thei chosenness, as with the Jews; their single-mindedness, as with Islam; ortheir larity as with the Sri Lankan Buddhists. ‘This tension and confict with out-groups does not always lead to violence. Forms of rhetorical and cultural conflict function to vitaize and mobilize religious identity as well, Chistian Smith's, work on American evangelicals shows that the evangelical groups that thrive are neither those. that separate from culture (fundamentalists) nor those that accommodate (liberal Christians), but those that engage with it in conflict and competition (Smith 1998). The establishment of Indian Buddhism in medieval China offers another illustration. Even as adherents of Buddhism made efforts to narrow the cultural disparity using strategies of accommodation (skilful means), they nevertheless established Buddhism’ symbolic and social identity through a series of public debates and polemical writings against Confucian and Taoist proponents. The process sharpened ‘Buddhist rhetoric without compromising its core values, Religions in general, and monotheisms in particular, need social conflict and competition both to hone their symbolic boundaries and to Keep them from imploding internally from internecine ‘conflict. The history of Protestantism is replete with internal strife and schisms that produced various sects’ claims to purty (Ward 1992; Wuthnow 1988). The history of Catholicism is framed by Rodney Stark as an internal confict between the church of piety and the church of power {Stark 2001), This internal conflict serves the Catholic Church by stimulating reform to restore ils ‘evangelical outreach and internal theological identity. Religions, as monopolies or as oppressed| RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE INEVITABLE? 293 groups, use conflict to strengthen their identity and mobilize their groups to action, We have argued elsewhere that the U.S. administration formulated the second Iraq war (and the creation of an enemy) in part because it fit the logic ofits evangelical base (Wellman 2004), Minority religions, including the Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, Tamil Hindus in Sri Lanka, and the Protestants in Guatemala, use ther religious traditions to energize and mobilize their cultural and political action against dominate political structures (Juergensmeyer 2000). However, we are less persuaded that religions seek conflict because they know itis functional to their identity. Continuing the engine metaphor, one of the central pistons that motivates religions is the belief that the religions are ue. Truth claims, whether implicit or explicit, act as powerful motivators to individuals and groups in expressing beliefs about their religion. Implicit truth claims imply that one's rituals and one’s behavior re norma, that i, real. Truth claims, however, and are discursively defended as what is rue about one's region, the cosmos, and reality itself. This has been the case with the development of sophisticated religious traditions before the Common Era in classical Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, which have accelerated in the Common Era with the metaphysics of Judaism, Christianity, and Istam. As the awareness and reality of cultural ‘and religious diversity increases in the modern period, the need to defend and articulate one’s religious symbol systems increases. ‘We believe itis folly 10 assert that true religion seeks peace; or that religion is somehow hijacked when it becomes implicated in conflict or even violence. Indeed, religion does produce ‘conflict and, less frequently, violence. We do not believe that this is a new situation or that it will end soon. These patterns are replete in our studies throughout history. Mesopotamian teligion was enormously violent, both in its symbolic cosmogonic portrayals and in its social and military actions toward others. Ancient Israel developed a concept of God that was agonistic to the extreme; it enabled the Jews to trust that God was on their side and that their cosmos reflected their earthly destiny (Niditch 1993; Collins 2003). Ancient Indian and Chinese religious beliefs and behaviors ineluded sanctioned violence in cosmogony, sacrificial ritual, and mortuary practice (Basham 1989; Bodie 1981; Lewis 1990). Buddhists have not shunned the use of force or violence against oneself or others, especially inthe sphere of religious nationalism. In medieval Japan, the Buddhist monk Nichiren (1222-1282) inaugurated an exclusivistic religious movement bbased on the theology of the Lorus Siira and an assertion of a nation governed by Buddhist law; the movernent provoked conflict and persecution (MeMullin 1984; Stone 1994); Buddhists supported Japanese imperialist aggression before and during World War If (Victoria 1997). In the contemporary period, militant political activist monks used violence for political ends in Sri Lanka (Tambiah 1992). Christians, of course, produced the crusades; killing for Christin the ‘medieval period became a herci ac of piety. To be sure, pious popes inspired and ed these social ‘movements (Stark 2001). ‘The partnership of religion and conflict is not only longstanding but new religions make a habit of creating conflict with dominant cultures. Modem examples include the self-inflicted Violence of Jonestown in 1978; the mass murder in the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten ‘Commandments in Uganda in 2000; the governmental attacks on the Branch Davidians in 1992; Scientology's batle for its public status in Europe in the 1990s; and the sarin gas attack on & ‘Tokyo subway station by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 that killed 12 and injured thousands (Bromley and Melton 2002), ‘The examples of religion and conflict could be multiplied To say these are anomalous cases is tobeg the question: Are there exceptions” We suggest no, To be sure, few new (or old) religious ‘groups create violent goals. However, tension and conflict are inherent in all religious groups and are central to their identity formation and group mobilization. Once again, violence is not often ‘a religion’s intent, but as an outcome of its relation to culture and politics, it is certainly not an ‘uncommon consequence. Religion, itcan be said, is a nexus of independent power, which by its very nature threatens political centers, no matter their shape or size.208 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION Religions throughout history and across cultures have formed themselves around a power cor force that is experienced as within, ouside, and above the sources of “normal” forms of tmoral authority in human societies, Religions call on sources of moral and spiritual authority that cannot be empirically disconfirmed by means of ordinary verification, whether socially culturally, politically, or scientifically. In this way, the power and force of religion is beyond 4juestion, analysis, of inspection. This gives to religion and toleaders within elgious communities enormous socal and moral leverage fo mobilize groups toward whatever metaphysical or political ‘goals they experience or create. In Wester religious terms, Soren Kierkegaard’s description of “Abraham's sacrifice of saac capturesreligion’stendency to transcend “universal” moral standards Kierkegaard said that the sacrifice of Abraham was the “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Inessence, whatever is found to be persuasive by an experience of ths force or power can be used to mobilize and rationalize social action, however deviant (Kierkegaard 1941), Tn the case of China and, by extension, East Asia in general, the individual is less pivotal. "Nevertheless, religion as a group phenomenon remains powerful in confronting state powers, as was demonstrated by frequent uprisings and rebellions throughout premodern period that were religiously motivated and sanctioned (Kamata 1990; MeMullin 1984), The politieal institution, hhowever, has the ultimate authority over religious institutions, in part because of the ancient Confucian ideology that mythologized the emperor as the earthly representation of the cosmic ‘will. The situation contrasts sharply withthe Indian and Southeast Asian context, where ultimate authority (a east during the premodern period) lay in the hands ofthe righteous king, who ruled according to religious ideals (Strong 1983; Tambiah 1976). Thus in China the power of religion to challenge political authority is checked if perceived asa threat to the socal order. Consequently, ‘we see state persecution of Buddhism in the medieval period (Nomura 1968), and suppression of smaller sectarian groups called White Lotus Teachings inthe late imperial period (Haar 1992) Powerful religions such as Buddhiom, therefore, had t resort to covert means (such as creating new scriptures to support its symbolic and social identity) or perform useful functions on behalf ‘ofthe state, such as conducting rituals of protecting the state and its members. Rodney Stark's work on religious confit portrays the rational choice makeup of religions. Religions make claims and create rewards that motivate individuals to do extraordinary things in light of the truth claims and promises ofthe religion, Depending on the rewards promised, may people are willing to give up “normal” preferences for survival, socal status, or purported ‘universal social norms (Stark 2001). They willingly submit to religious authorities who encourage them to act in ways that are different from what they were raised to do or what many around them expect. It is empirically true that there is an endless supply of individuals who are willing to give up their lives for religious ideals. Religion, as Larry lannaccone has argued, is uniquely able to ac asa vehicle for politically oppressed and socially marginalized groups, inthis ease Islamic extremists (though itis certainly not unique to Islam) (lannaccone 2004). Religion is an ideal vehicle precisely because it ereates an economy of cultre that gives small groups both experiences of transcendent power and socialization tat proteets them from out-group exposure. ‘These groups create a cosmic vision, offer an ideal social order, provide supemorml rewards, and produce a God that sanetifies horrific violence all n the name of religious goals Conflict in religion is socially functional. Moreover, it isin religion's very nature to produce tension with parent cultures. It animates followers under a system of symbols that verifies an experience ofa felt power of force that not only produces truth claims but promises social and metaphysical rewards. As mentioned above, religion is not merely a vehicle; it has an engine that never runs out of fuel. The source of the fuel is exactly this power or force that cannot be disconfirmed internally or externally. This engine is precisely why nation states and modern secular elites fear religion and seck to marginalize it. For on the one hand, religion will not submit (o any extemal authority (no mater how strong), and onthe other hand, religion cannot be undercut by rational deconstruction because it has a source that rests ouside of rational and empirical modes of discourse.IS RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE INEVITABLE? 295 Religion isa tricky business for academics. Theorists of secularization thought at one time that it was doomed either to extinction or to the private world of the human heart. They were wrong (Berger 1999). The adventure of studying religion is that no one can control the subject except as they realize its power to motivate and mobilize groups. To give religion its duc respect is the beginning of wisdom. So, we ask, i religious violence inevitable? Our answer is that religious conflict is predictable and should be expected. Because religion is often an independent cultural force in society, it has the tendency to become a threat to other cultural and political powers. Religious violence, we would argue, may not be inevitable, but it should surprise no one. Note 1, By confit we mean disagreement with others shor af emotional or physical injry. Violence is hough of areatonal and collective action tha creates iajury to ote ether emotional or physical wing words enor scons. Revenences ‘Basham, A.L 1989. 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