The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security

Chris Seiple, Dennis R. Hoover, Pauletta Otis, Chris Seiple, Dennis R. Hoover, Pauletta Otis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138640764
• eBook ISBN: 9781136239311
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History

This Handbook breaks new ground by addressing global security through the lens of religion and examining the role religion plays in both war and peace.

In recent years there has been a considerable upsurge of public concern about the role of religion in contemporary violence. However, other than historical materials, there has been a relative neglect of the subject of religion and security. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security fills this gap in the literature by providing an interdisciplinary, comprehensive volume that helps non-specialists and experts alike understand how religion is both part of the problem and part of the solution to security challenges. Featuring contributions from many of the key thinkers in the field, the Handbook is organized into thematic sections, reflective of three basic questions:

• What does religion think of security?;
• What does security think of religion?; and,
• What happens when the two are mixed in specific real-world cases of religious conflict?

This Handbook offers analyses of how nine different world religions have related to issues of war and peace, theologically and practically; overviews of how scholars and practitioners in nine different topical areas of security studies have (or have not) dealt with the relationship between religion and security; and five case studies of particular countries in which the religion--security nexus is vividly illustrated: Nigeria, India, Israel, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq.

This Handbook will be of great interest to students of religion, security studies, war and conflict studies and IR in general.

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INTRODUCTION

Chris Seiple, Dennis R. Hoover, and Pauletta Otis

Writing in the March 2003 Atlantic Monthly, prominent columnist and author David Brooks appealed to scholars, policy-makers, and other opinion leaders to “kick the secularist habit.” Brooks admitted that he himself only became aware of his secularist blinders after the shock of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Like much of the Western intelligencia, he had been academically and culturally shaped by secularization theory’s basic assumption, namely, that modernity inevitably undermines religion. Brooks (2003: 27) realized that in reality the world is at least as religious—and arguably even more so—than ever:

Until September 11, I accepted the notion that as the world becomes richer and better educated, it becomes less religious. … It’s now clear that the secularization theory is untrue. … Secularism is not the future; it is yesterday’s incorrect vision of the future. This realization sends us recovering secularists to the bookstore or the library in a desperate attempt to figure out what is going on in the world.

But if 9/11—an event obviously at the intersection of religion and security—sent Brooks and other recovering secularists to the library looking for books specifically about this intersection, pickings would have been slim. Only a few major books relevant to this topic (e.g., Johnston and Sampson 1994; Huntington 1996) appeared prior to 9/11. And even after 9/11, the international relations field, including security studies, was relatively slow to integrate religion into its empirical research, theoretical development, and policy debates. As Brooks (2003: 27) notes:

Over the past twenty years domestic-policy analysts have thought hard about the roles that religion and character play in public life. Our foreign policy elites are at least two decades behind. They go for months ignoring the force of religion; then, when confronted with something inescapably religious, such as the Iranian revolution or the Taliban, they begin talking of religious zealotry and fanaticism, which suddenly explains everything. After a few days of shaking their heads over the fanatics, they revert to their usual secular analyses. We do not yet have, and sorely need, a mode of analysis that attempts to merge the spiritual and the material.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security explores the possibilities of precisely this mode of analysis.

While Western academics have indulged a long intramural discussion of secularization, most of the rest of the world has demonstrated no interest in secularizing, much less theorizing ad nauseam about it. This Handbook is designed to engage, critically and constructively, a reality that has always existed (whether or not scholars were paying attention): religion matters to security. Our objective for the Handbook is to help meet the ongoing need for interdisciplinary resources that bring religious studies and security studies together in a common forum, offering nuanced analysis of how religion is both part of the problem and part of the solution to security problems. This unique volume encourages the worlds of religion and security to think outside their respective comfort zones, challenging conventional paradigms and assumptions about boundaries that should or even can be kept neatly impenetrable. Our hope is that this book will be a catalyst to a full and fluent discussion between and within disciplines, thereby furthering the maturation of the nascent field of religion and security.

By necessity we define both “religion” and “security” in broad terms, as these concepts are inherently complex and contested. By “religion” we mean simply a belief in something greater than oneself—an apprehension of and aspiration to the transcendent and to ethical clarity— which is often made manifest in rituals and institutions. Religion provides meaning, a coherent context for understanding the world, especially matters of life and death.

Our intent is to avoid the common mistake of imposing, implicitly if not explicitly, a definition of religion derived from a philosophical hyper-individualism rooted in the Western Enlightenment. Rene Descartes’s famous phrase, cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore I am”), may accurately signal the approach to religion of many modern Westerners—an approach in which the individual is the center of the universe, and notions of the divine or a creator are a product of “culture” as defined by individuals. But for many religious believers around the world (especially outside the West), their philosophical foundation could be better summarized as credo ergo sum (“I believe therefore I am”). In this light, religious beliefs are not just discrete consumer options on the menu of ideas. Rather, the divine is the center of the universe; personal identity is rooted more in one’s religious community and tradition than in individual choice; and culture is a byproduct of the creator.

Different understandings of the nature of “religion” can have important analytical consequences for scholars of security. If religion is understood solely in individualistic terms, it becomes easy to buy into simplistic secularism and to underestimate religion’s relevance; the assumption that is never far from the surface is that religion is merely derivative and epiphenomenal rather than elemental and causal. For a balanced estimation of the roles of religion, the analyst must be willing and able to understand religion in terms that devout believers themselves can recognize. This is not to suggest that an analyst must personally be an adherent to the religion being analyzed, or indeed an adherent to any religious tradition, in order to produce insightful scholarship. However, the flip side of this coin is that analysts of religion who are themselves deeply religious are not necessarily biased towards overestimating the importance and/or the benevolent effects of religion in society. Indeed, in some cases it is secularists who have not been tough enough on religion. They assumed it was fading from social significance, and hence ignored its continuing potential for conflict and violence.

As for the definition of “security,” in the realist school of international relations (which once was dominant but today has many competitors) security is defined in traditional hard-power terms—troops and tanks—and the major players are sovereign states. While we make no sweeping predictions about any inevitable eclipsing of the state system by non-state actors, we do approach security in a manner that creates ample room for religion and religious non-state actors—and the freedoms necessary to live out faith, in private life and public life. Our focus is sustainable security, defined not merely as the absence of imminent threats to physical safety, but also as the presence of the conditions (socio-economic, political, psychological, and spiritual) necessary for long-term stability and well-being. In this we are sympathetic to the “human security” concept (Wellman and Lombardi 2012), which recognizes the inherent connection between a failure to meet core human needs and the likelihood of violent conflict. The freedom to adopt and live out religious faith (or to reject it) is, we contend, one such core human need.

Meeting this need—in a context of transparent rule of law and equality of rights and responsibilities for all citizens—is a necessary condition for sustainable security (see R. Seiple and Hoover 2004; C. Seiple 2007; Thames, C. Seiple, and Rowe 2009; C. Seiple and Hoover forthcoming). These assertions are not mere conjecture, for there is ample empirical evidence in support. In their important recent book The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century, Brian Grim and Roger Finke (2011) analyze a large and sophisticated dataset covering nearly 200 countries, and demonstrate that, when governments and groups in society restrict religious freedom, the likelihood of violent persecution, conflict, instability, and terrorism increases. Likewise, citing a statistical analysis by the Hudson Institute, Grim and Finke (2011: 206) note that “wherever the level of religious freedom is high, there tends to be fewer incidents of armed conflict, better health outcomes, higher levels of earned income, prolonged democracy, and better educational opportunities for women.” In short, religion is empirically related to the security and stability of both society and state.

With these concepts of religion and security and their interrelationship as background, we organized this Handbook into three sections reflective of three questions: What does religion think of security?; What does security think of religion? and What happens when the two are mixed in specific real-world cases of religious conflict?

Part I, “World religions and security,” offers candid yet respectful overviews of how nine different faith traditions have related to issues of war/violence and peace, both normatively and in practice.

Judaism

Stuart Cohen explains how various influences of the biblical messianic vision and Jews’ troubled historical experience have shaped contemporary Jewish conceptions of, and disagreements about, security. Just as there is a lack of political consensus within Israel, Cohen notes, today there are dueling opinions not only about the appropriate religious strategy for attaining security but also about the very definition of the term “security” itself.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodoxy has maintained close ties between church and state throughout its history, and Christopher Marsh explains how this has prompted Orthodoxy to “align with the power of the state and to sacralize its security interests.” His survey focuses on Russian Orthodoxy because of its numeric importance and the resurgence of its social, political, and legal relationship with the Russian state following the Cold War—a resurgence that has considerable implications for the future of democracy in Russia and, in turn, Russia’s role on the world stage.

Roman Catholicism

Gerard Powers summarizes key dimensions of Roman Catholicism’s rich history of ethical reflection on matters of peace and security. He outlines the holistic vision of security cast by the Church’s social teachings, and provides illustrations of Catholic engagement regarding nuclear weapons, humanitarian intervention, and peacebuilding.

Protestantism

Robert Joustra argues that Protestantism’s diversity and dynamism make assessing its relationship to security difficult, especially because this religious tradition so heavily influenced the development of the contemporary world order. Joustra situates Protestantism in its historical context, identifies key features that typify the tradition, and discusses perspectives on security evident in six political traditions that have been important in Protestantism: the Anabaptist pacifist tradition, the liberation theology tradition, the Lutheran two-kingdoms tradition, the Reformed/Calvinist tradition, the tradition of Protestant Zionism, and the tradition of “civil religion.”

Shi’a Islam

Max L. Gross notes that Shi’a Muslims have been preoccupied with security since the earliest days of Islam, as their minority status within the larger Sunni Muslim world has periodically targeted them for harassment and persecution. Gross argues that political quietism rather than assertiveness has generally been characteristic of Shi’a communities, yet the Shi’a message also contains the potential for enabling revolutionary change, as has been apparent since the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Sunni Islam

Islamic terrorist groups routinely claim that violent acts are valid expressions of jihad, but Qibla Ayaz and Rashid Ahmad argue that Sunni scholars and jurists who are faithful to the true core of the tradition regard the sanctity of life highly and accept strict ethical limits on any use of force. Ayaz and Ahmad outline how Sunni ethics govern the proper cause and conduct of jihad. They explain that the disconnect today between Islamic ethics and behavior is due to a variety of factors, including a theological failure to recognize the spirit of the faith and how acts of violence constitute rejection of proper authority.

Hinduism

Torkel Brekke examines words from the Hindu tradition that convey its concept of security. He demonstrates how Hinduism’s “hierarchy of protection”—on the levels of state, civil society, and family—blurs the distinction between public and private security. His chapter addresses modern implications for religion and security in India, discussing the influence of both Gandhian non-violence and violent Hindu nationalism.

Sikhism

Pashaura Singh provides an overview of Sikh history and argues that popular narratives—and sometimes scholarly narratives too—of the Sikh relationship to violence are often over-simplified. Singh notes how non-religious factors (like ethno-nationalism) affected Sikhism’s development amid shifting political realities. Drawing from Sikh texts, he contends that Sikh thought contains robust ethics regarding the use of force and the transformative power of reconciliation and restorative justice.

Buddhism

Iselin Frydenlund notes the plurality within Buddhism and its traditional emphasis on praxis. Drawing on historical examples and texts, she discusses Buddhist political paradigms, justifications of violence, and ritual protection. Frydenlund shows...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• 1 Introduction
• PART I World religions and security
• PART II Security studies and religion
• PART III Case studies
• Index