https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to religious violence en https://religiondispatches.org/2023/09/27/america-appears-be-heading-religious-civil-war Civil war is coming to America. At least that’s the view sizable numbers of Americans have expressed to pollsters in recent years. A 2022 Economist/YouGov poll found that 43% of respondents think it’s likely a civil war will break out… Wed, 27 Sep 2023 04:02:13 EDT Nilay Saiya e8ff7500-f053-4cb7-a716-93dae679a053 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/08/17/vile-attack-salman-rushdie-reminds-us-value-free-society-our-outrage-more-about-criminal When it was published in 1988, The Satanic Verses wasn’t immediately controversial. But the charged politics of Islam and the West meant some kind of blowback to Salman Rushdie’s novel was likely: The Iran-Iraq War had just ended and the… Wed, 17 Aug 2022 01:15:54 EDT Haroon Moghul a3220164-ceaa-464c-8e5e-ee6406b154ca https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/13/orlando-massacre-and-isis-illusion-power Omar Mateen’s vicious assault on a Saturday night crowd in an Orlando gay bar either had nothing to do with Islam, or everything to do with it. We don’t yet know all the facts, but what we do know is… Mon, 13 Jun 2016 01:31:29 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer f1c1bcc6-31f0-4057-9a6e-5fadaa3657aa https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/26/plea-jewish-leaders-help-us-reject-all-institutional-efforts-convert-muslims-and-other I’m currently trying to finish a book manuscript on the malevolent effects of what I identify as “triumphalism” in Christian-Muslim relations. I define “triumphalism” as a mode of relating to religious others in which the religious self attempts to assert… Thu, 26 May 2016 09:48:38 EDT Scott C. Alexander 9e2a2da5-7bc4-4128-90f6-fdde23bda26d https://religiondispatches.org/2016/04/20/looking-islam-all-wrong-places-response-nabeel-qureshi Nabeel Qureshi made his debut into the evangelical anti-Muslim apologetics market with his conversion narrative Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, published in 2014. In the past, Qureshi has professed charity towards Muslims themselves even as he accuses his former religion of… Wed, 20 Apr 2016 06:00:12 EDT Jonathan Homrighausen, Elijah Reynolds 446c198b-3b4d-46e1-8ef6-8ffb07ea842d https://religiondispatches.org/2016/01/06/no-sunni-and-shia-muslims-have-not-been-fighting-forever Several days ago, before the Saudi government’s execution of prominent Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr took tensions between Riyadh and Teheran to a new high, a reader emailed me a deceptively ordinary question. It’s worth a second look, not only… Wed, 06 Jan 2016 01:34:45 EST Haroon Moghul b76b08df-c014-4333-aa04-f13d95b1d354 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/12/28/america-no-longer-christian-nation-and-other-critical-data-2015 After a year that included Pope Francis’ first visit to the U.S., the ongoing battle over “religious freedom” laws, and shifting views about America’s Christian heritage, we took a look back on some of the more important—and surprising—findings about American… Mon, 28 Dec 2015 06:00:37 EST Daniel Cox, Joanna Piacenza c18475ea-4bb9-4131-ae0e-7dcb8c1c5edf https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/30/does-violence-always-win-learning-rene-girard-1923-2015 Last August, a photo of a grieving father holding a child who had not survived the dangerous passage from Syria to Europe elicited widespread compassion from Americans. But following the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015, Governor Chris Christie and… Mon, 30 Nov 2015 01:30:51 EST Martha Reineke 9d5009b9-929d-4067-8817-7196171a1e7f https://religiondispatches.org/2015/11/16/religion-o-diabolic-lamenting-religious-violence-then-and-now Paris has known religious violence before. Over the course of two days in August of 1572, agents of the Catholic League butchered thousands of Protestants in the streets of Paris. The very phrase “St. Bartholomew’s Day” came to signal Catholic… Mon, 16 Nov 2015 03:00:42 EST Ed Simon 1689f788-e579-4dfa-94cb-d6cdcf88c680 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/06/22/not-all-christians-are-terrorists “I know that not all Christians are right-wing extremist terrorists, but why are all right-wing extremist terrorists Christians?” This is the question I’m never asked. But as somebody who actually knows something about Islam and about the complex history of… Mon, 22 Jun 2015 07:23:27 EDT Reuven Firestone 411f7896-4a41-445b-b5c4-f08a748d7d83 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/19/religion-blame-violence-karen-armstrongs-flawed-case Just as I finished Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood, which is a very extended attack on the notion that “religion is inherently violent” or that religion and war go together like a horse and carriage, news broke of the latest… Thu, 19 Feb 2015 12:23:46 EST Paul Harvey 6808fe1b-af82-44ff-9852-72959add2232 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/12/22/top-five-toxic-religion-stories-2014 From religious violence to fear of contagion to economic and racial injustice: taking full measure of what we are up against. Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:40:14 EST Peter Laarman 78bb5a8c-204d-44dc-90a8-2ee2059947eb https://religiondispatches.org/2013/08/12/news-flash-buddhist-majority-countries-just-complicated-muslim-majority Worsening situation of Burma’s Muslims is instructive. Mon, 12 Aug 2013 01:33:01 EDT Haroon Moghul 89ad3832-b44b-4297-8838-51182a6be6be https://religiondispatches.org/2013/08/08/punks-vs-monks-rockers-speak-out-against-genocide-myanmar Punk rockers in Myanmar are gaining international attention for publicly denouncing Buddhist monks’ genocidal treatment of Muslim minorities. Thu, 08 Aug 2013 11:24:44 EDT M. Sophia Newman fd9afbfb-722e-435e-88a1-214b67fd594b https://religiondispatches.org/2012/12/03/did-dalai-lama-just-call-end-religion The Dalai Lama recommends a radical new approach: a religionless religion, stripped of myth, superstition, and narrow dogmatism, and focused on the practical work of transforming human behavior. Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:47:32 EST Richard Schiffman bf756017-2d2a-423c-b3ed-33058e4c4ff9 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/10/25/killer-buddhists What about the peaceful, warm, accepting, cross-legged men wearing funny, exotic robes? Thu, 25 Oct 2012 04:44:52 EDT Joanna Piacenza f8653e24-6c9a-4c7c-817c-a4243c5b0e01 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/03/14/despite-religious-violence-egyptian-mosques-calling-muslim-christian-unity Otherwise you might as well send a message to al-Qaeda entitled “You’ve won.” Mon, 14 Mar 2011 08:45:17 EDT H.A. Hellyer 274d9f31-ef8c-4130-aaec-32cc93bcfed4 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/10/11/opening-door-hell-jewish-terrorism-israel On August 31, a few days before the opening of the current American-led Middle East peace talks in Washington, four Israelis were killed by Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Among them was a pregnant woman. This did not bode well for the future of the talks, about which there was already a great… Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:09:35 EDT Shalom Goldman 3ec92161-0634-440a-a723-c4ab888d8742 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/04/09/return-christian-terrorism Threats of right-wing violence have doubled in the past year. What is behind the latest upsurge in the movement to create a Christian theocratic state? Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:15:02 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer 3fefcee2-ea03-4ab8-9755-eb55fd2a988a https://religiondispatches.org/2010/03/29/politicized-religion-fuels-christian-muslim-violence-nigeria In a poverty-stricken nation with a failed state and rampant political corruption, the recent violence between Christians and Muslims has been blamed solely on religion. But to a reporter who spent two years covering Nigeria, it’s far more complicated than that. Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:28:50 EDT Elizabeth Dickinson 5a0a0d74-6706-48c5-9c08-a86a1137c3d4 https://religiondispatches.org/2009/07/03/myth-king-david-petraeus-and-iraq The words of our top general in Iraq—words I’ve described as myths—are those that the president says will determine his war policy. Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:21:20 EDT Ira Chernus db1df2cb-f9d3-41ae-8b51-de608c5644e3 https://religiondispatches.org/2009/06/10/patriot-pastors-cited-sedition Arab is the new German; in this long, long war suspicion is raised against Arab-Americans when Muslims are profiled as potential terrorists… Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:32:59 EDT Martin E. Marty 74cd2c80-4d9b-4ebf-870d-d26df8ebce4e