Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence

By Charles Selengut

Book Overview

Updated throughout, the third edition of the acclaimed Sacred Fury explores violence in world religion. Featuring new material on violence in Buddhism and Hinduism, the rise of ISIS, "lone wolf... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742560848
• ISBN13: 9780742560840
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Typologies of Religious Violence

Recognizing the unique relationship between religion and violence, Charles Selengut examines the phenomenon of religious violence from five different perspectives: the holy war, psychological, eschatological, civilizational, and sexual/bodily perspectives. Each of these perspectives, or typologies, has its own logic system, nature, and dynamics, and Selengut applies each typology to modern and historical examples of religious violence. The holy war perspective examines the scriptural call and religious duty to engage in violence. According to this perspective, religious violence is not a cover up for economic or cultural struggles, but religious conflict and violent encounters are sacred struggles on behalf of religious truth and divine revelation. Holy wars are situational moments of divine-human cooperation to further God's plan for justice and redemption. As such, holy wars seek to bring about an improved human order: wrongs in human history must be made right. The psychological perspective examines violence in terms of social collectivity, envy, anger, and frustration. Religious conflicts are psychological dilemmas that exist and take form within religion. Rene Girard believes the desire to emulate others (mimetic desire) leads to envy, jealousy, competition, and aggression. For Girard, religion seeks to provide sacred outlets for collective violence, thereby permitting violence against outsiders (scapegoats). The cognitive dissonance theory claims that when two religious beliefs are inconsistent psychic distress and discomfort result. There is an inherent drive for cognitive consistency, and religious militants refuse to compromise their beliefs and champion violence to force society to conform to their beliefs. Another psychological perspective sees violence as an act of symbolic empowerment: groups who believe they are victims of oppression use violence to show others their power and self-worth. Apocalyptic religious violence seeks to establish God's order through a cataclysmic event in which the forces of good and evil do battle. Apocalyptic events, as terrible and as violent as they are, are welcome as harbingers of the kingdom of God - when suffering will end and divine rewards will be distributed. Violence, within violent apocalyptic groups, is not viewed as necessarily evil, but loyalty to an ungodly society without transforming it to the kingdom of God is evil. Therefore, violence is necessary to bring about the kingdom of God, and as such the emphasis is not on the destruction of the old, but on the glories of the emerging order. Catastrophic apocalyptic groups believe it is their obligation to initiate the coming apocalypse through violence. Mystical apocalyptic sects encourage violence, suicide, and self-mutilation, in order to transcend this corrupt and unredeemable world. Utopian groups remove themselves from an immoral society, which will be destroyed, and establish their own religious lifestyles differ