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The subject of religion in political conflict is vast, and it is not possible to do justice to it in these few pages. Fortunately, scholars, political analysts, and policymakers can refer to two extraordinary new studies, Marc Gopin's Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking, and R. Scott Appleby’s The Ambivalence of the Sacred, for comprehensive treatments of both the destructive and constructive roles religion can play in the lives of ordinary people and nations. Rather, this chapter will focus on the complicated but discrete intersection of religion and mass psychology, and the way sacred beliefs can be used to intensify violence and warfare or mitigate against violence serve the cause of reconciliation and peace between groups and nations in conflict.
In proposing his concept of “the ambivalence of the sacred,” Appleby makes a critical contribution of the understanding of the way religion reinforces the human psychological construct, where we are all capable of love and creativity but also hatred and destructiveness. He cites the work of German theologian and philosopher Rudolph Otto (1869-1937), who described the concept of “the holy” as exclusive to the sphere of religion, indeed, the sine qua non of religion. Yet “the holy” or “the scared” (the terms can be used interchangeably) is neither “good” nor “evil” per se. It is the fundamental essence of reality. Its power is undifferentiated. It can create and it can destroy. Quoting Otto, the sacred “may burst in sudden eruption, up from the depths of the soul with spasms or convulsions, or lead to intoxicated frenzy, to transport to ecstasy. It has wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering.”
As humankind evolved, we began to substitute salvation religions for the more primordial magical rituals to appease a frightening, willful, and destructive God-power. People came to identify the sacred with the enhancement of life as well as a threat. Thus religion emerged as a dichotomy. “The devout,” according to Appleby, “spoke of God as alternatively wrathful and merciful, vengeful and forgiving.”
The great world religions vary widely in their substantive difference, but as Appleby says, “One can trace a moral trajectory challenging adherent to great acts of compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The competing voices of revenge and retaliation that continue to claim the status of authentic religious expression are gradually rendered as “demonic.”
This sets the stage for the examination of secular, psychological man, especially in the wake of humanity’s most murderous century, to see how it might be possible to have a parallel trajectory of life-enhancing ascendancy over the demonic in the affairs of nations, with, perhaps, important help from religion.
This book grew out of an October 1999 symposium on Forgiveness and Reconciliation, sponsored chiefly by the John Templeton Foundation. The symposium and book constitute part of the continuing Campaign for Forgiveness Research, also made possible by the same foundation.
The book consists of essays or chapters organized around themes of forgiveness and reconciliation in relation to public policy and conflict transformation:
Part I deals with the theology of forgiveness
Part II, with forgiveness and public policy
Part III, with forgiveness and reconciliation
Part IV, with seeking forgiveness after tragedy.
Participants in the symposium and contributors to the book include public policymakers, theologians, and other academics. Biographical information on the authors is given at the end of the book. An appendix provides a list of worldwide organizations promoting forgiveness and reconciliation. Each listing contains contact information and a synopsis of the organization’s purpose and work.