The Myth of Religious Violence : Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict

The 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. "The myth of religious violence is that religion is endemic to all human cultures and eras, and is prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality. Religion must therefore be separated from "secular" phenomena like politics for the sake of peace. The secular nation-state appears natural; it corresponds to a universal and timeless truth about the dangers of religion." "William T. Cavanaugh argues that this is a piece of Western folklore underwriting Western violence. Through a thorough genealogy of the concept, Cavanaugh shows that religion is not a universal and transhistorical phenomenon, Religious/secular and religious/political distinctions are modern Western inventions. Cavanaugh shows that what counts as religion and what counts as secular in any context corresponds to how power is arranged, both in the West and in lands colonized by the West." "The myth of religious violence helps create and marginalize a religious "other," prone to fanaticism, to contrast with the rational, peacemaking secular subject. Within the West, the myth underwrites the triumph of the emergent state over the church in the early modern period and the nation-state's subsequent monopoly on its citizens' willingness to sacrifice and kill. Outside the West, the myth of religious violence reinforces the superiority of Western social orders to nonsecular - especially Muslim - social orders. Their violence is seen as fanatical; our violence is justified as a rational means to peacemaking." "Examining academic, government, and journalistic sources, Cavanaugh shows how this myth is used to justify American diplomatic and military actions, including the recent Iraq War. Peace, argues Cavanaugh, depends on a balanced view of violence, and recognition that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality."--BOOK JACKET Oxford University Press, USA Contents 10 Introduction 14 1. The Anatomy of the Myth 26 2. The Invention of Religion 68 3. The Creation Myth of the Wars of Religion 134 4. The Uses of the Myth 192 Notes 242 Index 288 A 288 B 288 C 289 D 290 E 290 F 291 G 291 H 291 I 292 J 292 K 292 L 293 M 293 N 294 O 294 P 294 Q 294 R 295 S 295 T 296 U 296 V 296 W 296 X 296 Y 296 Z 296 ISBN-13:,9780195385045 The author argues against the belief that religion is universal to all human cultures and eras, discussing how Western cultures distinguish a difference between what is secular and what is religion, and examining how the West uses the idea of religious violence as a justification for peacekeeping, whereas religious violence from other social orders is often considered fanatical Cavanaugh challenges conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. He examines how timeless and transcultural categories of 'religion and 'the secular' are used in arguments that religion causes violence